


Who Says You Can't Go Home

by peacockgirl



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Everyone wants a happy ending, F/M, Iron Family, Let's just think about the time travel rules they set up okay?, Post-Endgame, The Endgame Fix It We All Need
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacockgirl/pseuds/peacockgirl
Summary: On his quest to return the Infinity Stones, Steve finds atonement. Tony finds his way home. The Endgame fix-it we all need, because our boys (and girls) deserve their happy endings.





	1. 5 Stones Down

Steve went to Morag first.

He’d went under the ice long before his country set its mind on the sky and woken to a world where aliens attacked his city, so he didn’t understand the allure of space. But there was something in the way others spoke of it. The little boy glee that had broken through Clint’s lethal melancholy at the prospect of flying a spaceship to another planet. The wistfulness in Carol’s stories about worlds and wonders far beyond Steve’s reckoning.

With a case full of Infinity Stones and a heart full of grief he was in desperate need of just a glimmer of joy. But as he arrived on the red tinged planet crawling with the ugliest lizard-rats he’d ever seen he kept thinking of how Clint’s excitement turned to ash just like his family. The red reminded him of Nat’s blood, spreading out to stain the ends of her two-toned hair.

_He’d asked her why she didn’t cut it. She’d asked him why he’d kept the beard so long. He didn’t think it was the same. Nat was blameless in all that happened. But she’d told him once over a glass of vodka and a shared peanut butter sandwich that she’d never seen Clint again after they squared off at the airport. That she’d never been mad in the first place and it killed her that he suffered alone._

Morag held nothing but refuse. Steve returned the stone to an unconscious Quill. Music blared so loudly from his Walkman that Steve could hear it. Each soaring chord and swinging note felt like a blow, and he was so tired of getting up.

Tony was always blaring music, loud and obnoxious, as he worked up some stroke of genius. Like how to save everyone in the world but himself.

Steve couldn’t help but feel that it should have been him. Maybe it was arrogance. America’s defender and the ultimate soldier and all that. But he’s not the strongest among them – that’s Hulk. Not the most powerful – that’s Danvers. Not the smartest – that’s Tony by a long run, though Bruce gave him a run for his money. Not the most compassionate. He thinks that was Nat, as much as she’d argue otherwise. But he was the first – if you don’t count Thor – and self-sacrifice for God and country was kind of what he was made for. And if he had been the one to snap his fingers the world would have given speeches about how it was fitting, and though his friends would have mourned there wouldn’t be a fatherless little girl, and a widowed woman, and a lost looking kid from Queens.

The world was saved, the lost returned. But it never felt like victory.

One stone back. Five more to go.

* * *

Asgard was next.

This, Steve thought, was a planet. Every color seemed more vivid. There was a lightness in that air that was euphoric like a drug.  Music swelled even in the silence and he could feel it, complex like a symphony. It was far more alien than a red haze and a crumbling temple.

The beauty made Steve feel even more undeserving.

He shouldn’t be there. All he could think was how much Thor has lost. How they couldn’t save him, and had barely tried.

In most places Steve was too imposing to hide properly. Here he was the puny one. He contemplated finding some sort of tunic to try to blend in, but was apprehended before he could find an unguarded closet.

In hindsight, it was perhaps unwise to stride into the Royal Palace with the prince’s missing weapon.

He was quickly surrounded by four strapping warriors. Steve could take them – maybe – but it would serve no purpose, and he was not in the mood for sparring. He was supposed to get in and out unnoticed, but it seemed he couldn’t do anything right.

But miserable and unworthy as he felt, the hammer was steady in his grasp. He surrendered it when asked, but it clamored to the floor when one of the guards tried to take it from him. As each guard tried in vain to lift it Steve thought of a night, long ago, filled with laughter and testosterone fueled attempts at bravado. It seemed ridiculous that he could be worthy now, when he didn’t have any idea then all the ways that he could fail. But it was ridiculous that a piece of metal could render judgement at all.

And yet the hammer would not move.

“I’ll give it back to Thor,” he said, even though that wasn’t the plan at all. He wasn’t supposed to be noticed. Could not interfere because who knew what would happen. Certainly not him. He had no idea what Tony and Bruce had babbled on about as they discussed the intricacies of the time heist; hadn’t even heard of most of the movies Rhodey referenced. “Shouldn’t just leave this in the hall.” He opened his hand and concentrated. Mjolnir’s handle slapped against his palm with a thunk that he found satisfying despite himself.

“You demand audience with our prince,” said a massive man with a gregarious ginger beard. Like some dwarf out of Lord of the Rings – which Steve had seen – but giant.

“If you don’t mind,” Steve answered, finding himself channeling Tony’s cheek with absolutely no idea what he was doing.

His escorts stayed close as they frog-marched him to the throne room, the deluded Asgardian weapon swinging merrily at his side.

Then Thor was there before him, hale and hearty, and Steve understood what had compelled him.

He was looking for ghosts.

“Rogers, my friend!” Thor boomed, his hair tidy and glistening, his eyes perfectly matched. “Unhand him. This Captain of America is perfectly welcome here. He has come a long way. This is not how we treat our guests from Midgard.”

The others fell back as Thor stepped forward and wrapped Steve in a hug that would have crushed an unenhanced man. But Thor knew Steve could take it. “However did you get to Asgard?” Thor asked in what he probably thought was a whisper, though the sound carried across the room. “I thought only my Jane had any understanding of such travel, and she is already here.”

“It’s kind of a long story.” Steve pulled away and held out his wrist.

“That looks like one of Stark’s magic gadgets.”

That stung in a way Thor could not understand. “Yeah,” Steve said softly. This Thor, who was not numbed by beer and loss, noticed the change.

“There is something different about you. Something has happened.”

Steve huffed out a breath, feeling on the brink of a confession that would be catastrophic. “Can we talk in private?”

“Leave us,” Thor commanded. The others shuffled away. Steve still didn’t feel alone in the massive room, but perhaps that was better.

“I came to return your hammer.” Steve lifted it one last time, memorizing how it felt, so perfectly balanced and also, somehow, righteous, and brimming with power just below the surface.

He should have used it to fly. Just once.

Thor took it, eyebrows raised, and Steve thought again of that night at the party, moments before Ultron. Would Thor know now that Steve could wield it, even when Steve did not?

Time travel made his head hurt.

“It is the strangest thing. Less than an hour ago some of my men saw it soaring through the palace even though I had not summoned it. Try as I might I could not make it return. I would have torn the place apart to search for it, but Jane has been in fits. I just only got her to rest. She keeps muttering about a rake-coon or something, whatever that means.”

“Yes, well.” He shrugged, and the silence dragged on. It felt wrong to lie about the hammer when the hammer was supposed to have judged him as worthy. That felt enough of a lie already. “Speaking of Jane,” he finally said, as he pulled the vial of Aether from his jacket pocket. “You’re supposed to put this back inside her.”

Thor’s eyes opened wide. He took the vial, but held it far in front of him as if it were the plague. “Why would I do that? We have been trying to get this out of her.”

Which was one of the many reasons Steve was supposed to do it himself. “That’s fine – I guess. Just destroy it – however you planned to do that. And there might still be more in her, possibly.”

“Something is going on here,” Thor growled. “I am no fool.”

And he wasn’t, had never been, but they’d still found something comic in his misery, and Steve burned with shame. If he tried to summon the hammer now, he knew, it would not come.

“You’re right, but I can’t explain. Just take the vial and let me go.”

“You are changed. You are older.”

The fact that Thor could see that – Steve wanted to sob. It would be so easy to plunge from this precipice into the stunning waters beneath. To tell Thor everything he knew about his tragic future in hopes that he could save his mother, his father, his Jane, his home, his eye. His brother, as treacherous and murderous as he was. His spirit.

But the years that would follow were woven through with Thor’s downfall, and Steve couldn’t know how they would be impacted if he made just one little change, let alone half a dozen. He did not come to undo the victory that had been so hard to win.

He did not know how to make this better. He would not make it worse.

He swallowed hard and shook his head, committing Thor’s regal countenance to his memory one last time. “It’s real good to see you. But I have to go. Take care of Jane.”

“You could stay. Just a little while.” It was not a threat, it was an invitation, and Steve’s heart swelled even as it sank. “There will be revels tonight. There are always revels. You look as if you need them.”

He considered it just a second. His bracelet was programed to jump back shortly after each stone was taken. He was not on a deadline. The only urgency was his own. He did need to relax.

But Asgardian mead might loose his tongue, make him say something he couldn’t take back.

And Thor’s mother would die that day, he realized with a chill, and that decided it. He did not want to be there to see that. He could not stand to witness any more grief.

He clapped the god’s shoulder and tried to smile. “Farewell, Point Break. We’ll see each other again soon.”

“I do not understand why Stark calls me that,” Thor grumbled.

It’s only as he made the jump that Steve realized there was one thing he should have said.

_Aim for the head._

Two stones down.

* * *

Vormir was enough to make him swear off other planets forever. The place was a desolate wasteland, eerie like an abandoned battlefield. Ash fell from the sky like snow. Steve felt sick to his stomach. This was a terrible resting place for Nat.

_Don’t be such a crybaby_ , he could hear her chide. _It’s better than a crack den or a whorehouse._

She’d been his constant longer than anyone except Bucky, and even that had been close. Buck had been his confidante in his youth, back before the serum and shortly afterwards. Nat had been by his side as he faced the new world, so much murkier than the one he’d left. At first he’d thought she was too much gray in a world that should have been black and white. But as the rest of the world had gotten darker her light had shown through. When half of everything had been lost she’d kept trying to help long after he he had given up. She deserved to see their victory more than anyone. That she’d died here a few hours too early was so fucking unfair.

Clint’s description of Vormir had been terse and on the brink of tears. _There was this mountain. Guarded by a floating man. He gave us an ultimatum. We fought. She fell. I woke up with the stone._

Steve had never expected to climb the mountain and find the Red Skull.

“You have got to be shitting me!” Even though he’d never been so alone he still expected Tony to comment on his language. But Vormir was silent, except for the monster floating before him wearing a familiar devil’s face.

“Steven, son of Sarah.”

“What the hell is this? Do you take the form of some demon in our past? Is this whole rock some giant test?”

Just as in life the Nazi didn’t quail, but Steve could feel himself shaking, the rage that he’d tried to tamp down bubbling up to the surface. He didn’t need this now, the man who had stolen his life and set him on this path of heartbreak sneering at his failure.

“Do not flatter yourself. This is my true form. I was banished here to watch over the stone. My punishment for seeking another.”

“You killed Natasha!” Steve lunged forward, intent on shaking the life out of him if he could, but the Red Skill simply drifted up and backwards, just out of reach.

“I did not. Clint killed Natasha, as the price for the stone. Or maybe she killed herself. It was not clear. I have seen others resort to blows to decide who will die, but never before to decide who will live.”

Steve couldn’t imagine the guilt Clint must feel. He and Nat had a bond no one else on the team could touch. He also had a family whose absence had left him wrecked. But Steve knew he never would have chosen to leave Nat there, no matter the prize.

“A soul for a soul. That is the rule. I was not the one to make it. Clearly not, for it is my lack of soul to give that binds me here.”

“You don’t have the stone now.”

“Not currently. But I will soon enough. For that is why you have come, is it not?”

Steve couldn’t believe that he was right. That there was any possible timeline where he left an Infinity Stone with this Nazi monster when he’d sacrificed his very happiness to keep one out of his grasp. “Maybe I won’t.”

The Red Skull chuckled, cold and scornful, and for the first time Steve understood Bruce, for he felt like his anger could turn him into a mindless, uncontrollable maelstrom of rage. “What would you do instead? Where else could you hide it that would be safer?”

“Anywhere,” Steve spat, desperately searching for an alternative, all the while knowing that there wasn’t one to be found.

Was that how Tony had felt, the moment before he took the stones from Thanos?

“You will not.” There was steel in the monster’s voice and he seemed to grow larger, swelling to fill the sky, but Steve had known him as a man and would not be cowed. “You have made a promise to return the stone, and Steve Rogers is not one to break his oath.”

He didn’t know how the Nazi knew that. Didn’t understand why it sounded almost like a compliment. But he knew all at once what he needed to do.

“I will give you the stone. You will give me Natasha.” The thought of her gave him the strength to go on. For she would know what to do. She would convince Clint to cut his hair and turn this whole nightmare into a bedtime story for his kids. She’d remind Steve that Tony had lived a good life, and regale him with stories of Tony’s playboy youth that would override the image burned so vividly across Steve’s mind of the man with his daughter at his hip, desperate to avoid the inevitable loss that Steve asked of him.

“That’s not how this works.”

“Yes it is. A soul for a soul.”

“She is dead.”

“Then bring her back!”

The demon seemed to shrug, and then he floated to the edge of the mountain. “I cannot. But you will give me that stone.”

Steve dropped his pack and settled to the ground. “We’ll see.”

.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, because there was no sunrise or sunset, just an eclipsed moon and sick twilight. Every few hours or so he would get up and pace around the mountaintop. His routine always ended with the same demand. “Bring her back.”

“Give me the stone.”

Hunger and thirst has been familiar companions on the battlefield, and his body was better able to handle it than most. But there were no MREs waiting for him after a long march. He almost relished the discomfort, certain he could take it.

It was the lack of sleep that wore him down. He dared not close his eyes, in case the monster had some way to take all four stones still in his possession. He’d barely slept in the week since the time heist, too plagued with nightmares, too sick from reality.

He didn’t know how many days he lasted. He only knew it was not enough.

The monster’s answer was always the same.

Until it wasn’t.

“Bring her back.” His voice was barely a croak as his parched throat flared in agony. He hated that it sounded more like a plea than a demand.

“She is not here,” the monster said quietly. “Not any longer.”

Steve stared into those red eyes and did not understand what he found. “Where is she then?”

“Gone. Stolen from my grasp by someone who does not respect the rules.”

“Who?”

“How am I to know? He did not come here. But nothing is strong enough to thwart the will of an Infinity Stone besides another stone.”

“Bruce,” he breathed, but that was all he could wrap his mind around. It didn’t make any fucking sense. “Bruce tried, when he had the gauntlet, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t bring her back.”

“Look down into the valley,” the Red Skull commanded.

Steve had been afraid to for a long time, not willing to see Nat’s broken body there, not when he intended to save her. Eventually he’d worked up the courage. But there had been nothing but an expanse of rock, so very far down.

As Steve approached the edge he wondered if the Red Skull intended to push him down the mountaintop. He found that he didn’t much care.

This time the valley was not empty. Half a dozen corpses were scattered across it, though their forms were bright and hazy. Something told Steve it was their souls he was seeing, not their bodies.

There was a green woman who must have been Thanos’s daughter, and a shape or two whose species he didn’t think he could identify even if they hadn’t been shattered. But none of them were Nat.

“Your quest is futile, Captain Rogers. Give me the stone and go search for her elsewhere, if you must.”

Something clawed in his chest, but if it was hope it was a terrible thing. He just wanted to stop. He wanted all of this to be over.

He envied Tony his rest.

There were still four stones to go.

Soon it would be three.

“How do I return it?”

The Skull smiled, Steve’s skin crawled, and the moment passed. “Throw it over the cliff.”

Steve opened the case, removed the red stone with the glove Bruce has fashioned to counter the radiation, and resigned himself to never seeing Natasha again.

The stone soared over the cliff, winking for a moment in the twilight.

Steve woke in a shallow pool, desperately floundering for the case that was still, thankfully, by his side.

He hadn’t been able to see water from the mountain. A new moon shone in the sky.

Natasha was there, somehow, at the bottom, though he couldn’t see her. He just knew.

“It’s all right, Old Man,” she said drolly, with a smile that was wry but true. “I’ve found my peace. It’s time to find yours.”

He activated his quantum suit.

Three stones to go.

* * *

It was ironic really that the stone in Loki’s scepter was the easiest to return, when there was already two versions of Captain America facing off in New York. The Hydra goons in the elevator were only too glad to take the case back when Steve met them again at the bottom, claiming he’d gotten a second call from the Director changing the plans once again.

It felt wrong placing the scepter back in Hydra’s hands, but that was a mistake made long ago. He’d never meet Wanda – or Vision – if he didn’t.

Two stones left.

By the time he stumbled up the fire escape to Bleaker Street he felt so faint he resolved to stop for a sandwich before he jumped to 1970. Maybe pass out in an ally for a while.

“You are not Bruce Banner.”

The bald woman waiting for him on the rooftop was not what Steve was expecting. From what Steve had seen on the battlefield and afterwards her successor was far more sarcastic and flamboyantly dressed.

“No, ma’am. But Bruce sent me to return what you gave him.” He opened the case and pulled out the green stone, desperate to be rid of it. If he had any delusions of being strong enough to wield any one of the stones, this is the one he would use.

“Steve Rogers. The man out of time. But never more so than now.” She accepted the stone with an uncanny grace. The case at her neck opened, and in an instant the time stone vanished inside.

“Funny that of all the heroes, you would volunteer to return it, when time has already treated you so strangely.”

There was black at the edge of his vision. “Who said I volunteered? There weren’t many options left.” The ground swayed beneath him. He didn’t remember an earthquake, and all the Chitauri destroyers should have already fallen.

“There are always options, Captain.”

She reached towards him and Steve collapsed.

.

He woke in an unfamiliar bedroom amidst soft sheets and foreign artifacts. He pulled an IV from his arm, momentarily frantic, but his mind was clear and he did not feel drugged.

The case was on a table by his bedside, the final Infinity Stone still inside.

He took it with him as he crept out of the room, every muscle stiff and screaming in protest. Whatever had been in that bag certainly wasn’t a pain killer.

As soon as he stepped into the hallway he was overcome by a delicious smell. Against his better judgement he followed his ravenous stomach to what was clearly a kitchen, where the Sorcerer Supreme sat at a table set for two.

“Ah, there you are, Captain. Your aura grew unsettled. I suspected the smell of breakfast might rouse you.”

There was a large window by an ancient looking range, but it was mostly dark, save for the dull glow of perpetual city light. New York was never truly dark. Even after Thanos came. Steve narrowed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Two am, or thereabouts. But it is breakfast time somewhere.”

It had been afternoon when he’d passed out. “I slept that long?”

The woman pushed a bowl toward him and gestured for him to sit. “You slept for days. You were exhausted and starving when you collapsed on my rooftop. I had to give you fluids to sustain your body while your mind rested. You have been on quite a journey, it seems, and it has not been kind to you.”

“That’s an understatement,” Steve muttered, though the woman looked unimpressed by his self-pity. “Why do I get the impression you helped with that collapse?”

She smiled, all sparkling eyes and teeth. “Men. You are not the first of your ilk I have dealt with – nor will you be the last. Always pushing yourself to the brink of collapse, as if you’re good to anyone that way. Now eat.”

The bowl held some sort of porridge, filled with fruit he did not recognize. It was delicious, and he devoured it eagerly. When it was nearly gone the magician waved her hand and the bowl refilled itself.

Steve looked up at her but paused only for a moment. “Why are you helping me?”

“It is my path to help people. As it is yours. This suspicion is unlike you.”

She wasn’t wrong. But his perpetual optimism, which he’d tried to hold on to even after the snap, had vanished when he’d seen Tony’s eyes blinking back tears from the face of his little girl on the day of his funeral.

“I don’t know what I’m like anymore.” He was struck, suddenly, by the realization that his task was almost over. There was only one stone to return, and then nothing left to face but the world they had saved.

“Loss can teach us a lesson, or it can destroy us. That choice is always ours to make.”

That sounded like something he might have said once. He was no longer sure he believed it.

“Whatever battle you faced you must have won, for here you are, returning the stones. Stephen saw truly.”

“We did. But the cost was high.”

“It often is.”

Steve wanted so desperately to feel that it was worth it, but could muster no such certainty. Perhaps this woman could give him that, and that’s why he was still here. “Bruce said you made him promise to return all the stones. He told me I needed to clip all the branches to preserve the original timeline. Have I done that? Will everything happen as it’s meant to?”

The woman looked at him. There was something uncanny about her eye contact, and if she was staring right inside him. “With the stones restored the timelines will not crumble. I cannot speak to anything more of other times you have visited, for I am no longer part of those paths. I know only of this one. And while you did return the stones, the taking of them was not without consequence. This reality will continue. But the course of it has changed. Already it is not the timeline you are familiar with. Those changes are likely to magnify as time passes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Due to your meddling Loki escaped with the Tesseract. Surely you can imagine how that will ripple.”

Except Steve couldn’t. Loki – the Tesseract – it was all so entwined that Steve had no idea what moving the pieces would do. That’s why he hadn’t been able to help Thor. He’d never been any good at chess. That’s what Tony had been for. Steve was just the compass and the muscle.

“Did we make things worse?”

“Who’s to say. How can one weigh one outcome against another when the exchange is never fair? Some people may live. Others may die. Already my grasp on what would have been slips away. You and your friends have removed those possibilities.”

“Natasha.” Realization struck him like a physical blow, nearly knocking the air from his lungs. “The Red Skull told me he couldn’t give her back because she was no longer there. That someone had used an Infinity Stone. Bruce – my Bruce – tried but he wasn’t able to. But maybe something happens here that changes that. Maybe this time he can.”

“Perhaps.”

Steve had a few extra vials of Pym particles. He reached for one, a plan already forming in his mind. He was going off book now, but it would be worth it, to know there was a universe where Nat came home. He could live with himself again if he just knew for sure that she was alive somewhere to see their victory.

“I caution you against that, Steven. That bracelet of yours is calibrated for the timeline you came from. Once you leave this one you’ll never be able to return. The future you see will be the one you left.”

Steve stopped, and it felt like losing her all over again - Bruce throwing a bench halfway across the lake and Clint’s defeated certainty while the rest of the team wallowed in a collective despair, as sharp as it was unexpected. Somehow he was all of them now, angry and resigned and devastated simultaneously.

_See you in a minute_ , she had quipped.

He had forgotten how well she could lie.

“So I’ll never know whether we saved her or not?”

“I didn’t say that. There is one way. The way open to all mortals.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, not beyond begging. At least this woman wasn’t a Nazi.

He was not entirely convinced that she was human.

The woman’s eyes never left his. “You wait.”


	2. Chapter 2

**5 YEARS LATER**

If you had told Steve in 1942 that in seventy-five years there would be two of him living in New York, and one would be hiding out with a magician tracking changes in time Bucky would have laughed himself blue in the face. Even six years ago Steve wouldn’t have believed it.

 _Master of the Mystic Arts, dear_ , the Sorcerer Supreme corrected him, even in his head, whenever he thought of her as a mere magician.

_“Will you try to stop me?” he had asked, because the moment the woman had suggested he might stay he had made up his mind that there was no alternative._

_“I think that would be rather futile. I’d rather keep an eye on you. I was about to offer you sanctuary.”_

He never learned the Sorcerer’s name, and he knew little about her besides the fact that she was very old and very wise. Sometimes she would disappear for weeks at a time. Sometimes she was there constantly, summoning strange food and offering lessons.

_“I could teach you the Mystic Arts,” she told him once, and he laughed out loud, the first genuine laugh he could remember since he’d returned from the time heist._

Sorcerer America. _“Wouldn’t that be something. Wherever Tony is, he’d get a kick out of it for all eternity.” It didn’t hurt as much as it would have once, to think that._

_“It is a useful skill. We can’t always use our brawn to smash our way out of a situation.”_

_“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it’s for me.”_

She did teach him to meditate, which he found surprisingly effective. The woman’s peaceful aura was infectious, and Steve found all the sharp edges of the past few years falling away. He was not happy there, not exactly, but he was content.

_”Why are you doing this?” he asked one night, a few weeks into his stay, while the woman summoned takeout noodles and told him of a temple in the mountains where she often sought new pupils. “Taking me in like a stray. Why didn’t you just tell me to go home?”_

_There was something about her smile that hinted she was thinking things she’d never say. “It seems that I have a soft spot for strong willed men named Steven who are intent on carrying the world on their shoulders but don’t know how to bear it.”_

_Steve had only ever been called Steven when his mother decided he was in trouble, but he recognized that it would be just as unwise to protest in this situation._

Most of his time was spent collecting clues, keeping track of how the world changed and how it didn’t.

 _You look like a serial killer_ , Nat commented in his head as he added a new note to the timeline on his wall. He’d shadowed the team as they completed a mission, and after the Other Guy shrunk down to size Steve saw him and Nat board the Quinjet hand in hand. He was fairly certain that was new.

“I was going more for a detective hot on a case.” Sometimes he spoke aloud as if she were there. It helped pass the time.

 _Either way you’re bordering on crazy-town_.

But he didn’t give up. The hardest part was not being noticed, because while he often knew where his comrades were supposed to be he also knew how vigilant they were, and how Tony especially had eyes everywhere. Often he relied on news articles and deep throat blogs, but every so often he’d risk getting close just to glimpse them with his own eyes.

He’d been there nearly five years when the Ancient One kicked him out.

_“It’s time to go, isn’t it?” he asked when she returned from a particularly long absence with a solemn expression and a Bavarian candy that she knew he liked very much._

_She’d never managed to teach him magic, exactly, but he’d become more attuned to the flow of time. He felt that a change was coming – not one that the time heist has made but one that had been inevitable even then._

_“It is time for me to help another Steven find his path. But I am sorry I must put you out.”_

_He smiled and found that he meant it, genuinely. “You’ve been more than kind.”_

_“You still have a long journey ahead of you. I can arrange another place for you to stay.”_

_He would have argued once that he didn’t need help. But he had an unforgettable face and no means to support himself.  Pride had no place in the Sanctum, it seemed. “I’d appreciate that.”_

_“You must not forget the rules when I am not there to remind you.”_

_It was only one rule, but the plurality gave it gravitas. “One stone left. One timeline in jeopardy. Don’t get killed before the mission’s through.”_

_She had emphasized that again and again as the sole condition of his residence. His bracelet would allow him to return the stone on time no matter how long her tarried in this present. But he must not put himself in danger._

_The woman bowed her head in a show of respect he finally felt once more that he deserved. “It has been a privilege, Captain.”_

_“I’ll never be able to thank you.” She had given him more than just a way to channel his frustrated hopes. In the Sanctum he had found peace._

_“I do not do what I do for gratitude. Never forget that you are a protector. That is thanks enough.”_

He packed up his timeline and moved into a hole in the wall in the Bronx as world events escalated, hoping for some monumental difference. For he and Tony to work things out without violence. For the team to stand united against the threat that was coming. For all the missions chasing Loki to have fixed them, somehow. But the Avengers fractured as Steve watched.

Thanos came and snapped and the world fell apart.

It was only in the last five years that he got antsy, familiar desperation coursing through him every time he picked up a newspaper splashed with tragedy. He started a second counseling group in another part of the city. His friends’ movements were easy to track because he knew their secret channel. He couldn’t see them without giving himself away, but he listened and tried to remember the reports Nat had given him those few times loneliness or guilt drove him to the Compound.

The first time he’d heard her voice he’d had to sit down, his hands gripping the arm of a chair so tightly the wood snapped beneath his fingers. During all his recognizance from the Sanctum he’d never been close enough to hear her. Now whenever her voice rolled over him he was aware of every way he’d remembered it wrong – each misplaced resonance and mis-chosen colloquialism.

There was something different about her tone. But the more he heard it the more he was convinced that the change was not a deficit in his own memory. She was still tired – because the world had fallen apart and no one slept anymore – and she was still focused – because there were earthquakes and looting and gang wars – but she did not sound quite so _resigned_.

And maybe it was him – because _Steve_ was no longer so resigned – and when he meditated in his dingy apartment he could feel time flowing faster now, all the threads getting ready to twist and then collide in a giant conflagration that would set the world to rights. He was living his life over again, and yet it felt new. Perhaps this was how the Ancient One had lived and died – for she was gone now, surely, she’d never said that but it had been inherent in their last goodbye, for Bruce had come looking for Dr. Strange and had been five years too early – trusting that the universe was on course but knowing she could give it a little push if she needed to.

And yet Steve didn’t think so, and the post-its on his wall became observations about Nat – the way she cracked a joke or offered praise and even chuckled once. Because he’d seen no trace of that over peanut butter and vodka. He’d stayed away – he’d missed so much – but every time he’d seen her after the Decimation she’d been weighed down by the past, breathless from trying to keep the whole world from drowning.

Here the current was strong, but she glided through the water. It cheered him on the darkest of days. He wondered sometimes if he could be content if this wasn’t the timeline she was rescued back into, just knowing that her last years hadn’t been so bleak.

Yet most days he knew that wouldn’t be enough. It was better that she wasn’t miserable, but she still deserved to see their victory.

Sometimes he heard Bruce on the channel, and not the deep gravely voice of the half-form Steve had met in that diner. Bruce sounded fully human and he spent time at the Compound, joining in on some of the missions, and that was new.

On the day of the Return Steve was in his apartment – until he wasn’t. One moment he was pacing across his living room, thinking about how fast he could drive to the Compound when he was supposed to be contemplating all the reasons he couldn’t intervene. The next he was on a busy Bronx street – the same street he had chosen on Decimation day, because he’d forced himself to go someplace he could help when what he’d really wanted was to avoid a replay of the scene that still gave him nightmares. It had been even more gruesome the second time, as cars collided and planes fell from the sky.

Afterwards the neighborhood had been half abandoned, rife with looting and papered over with Missing posters just as futile as the NYPD’s attempts at imposing law and order.

Now traffic crawled and pedestrians ignored good sense as they watched their phones as they crossed the street. Steve felt the déjà vu but there was no boom of shattered skyscrapers as the city started to implode. The skeletons of what once was had disappeared. There was no collective exhale as the world received back their lost.

Because to the world they had never been lost at all.

Steve felt the way that time yanked back, years of misery just fading away, like skipping back on a DVD.  While surely the Ancient One would have argued that they’d altered the nature of things Steve marveled at the possibilities before him, because this was entirely new.

He watched a family drive unimpeded through a green light – remembered the way the mother had disappeared, how the father had staggered out bleeding after a taxi slammed into the passenger side and their little boy had bled out in his arms.

Then he started to run.

He had just reached his building when a familiar circle of sparks appeared and a less familiar face peered out. “Are you coming?” Doctor Strange asked.

Steve hesitated only a second, his instincts at war with an oath he’d repeated, time and again. “She wouldn’t want me to.”

The magician smirked. “Then why did she tell me where to find you?”

That was all the encouragement Steve needed. He stepped through the circle and into a battlefield.

This was just how he remembered, except he had no weapons and no armor and wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Concern flared, just for a second, because he had sworn not to die, but then T’Challa was there in full battle raiment, and he said to one of the men beside him, “Get this man a shield,” the same joke he’d made a few hours and fifteen years ago. They got him some kind of laser gun as well, and that was enough.

He stayed near the periphery, not wanting to confuse his friends by being two places at once and also desperate to assess what was going on and what had changed. The Avengers Compound was still decimated, Thanos’s ship sat in the sky, and Tony, Thor, and Steve’s younger self were all drawing the Titan’s fire. But as he searched for the gauntlet he saw that Clint still had it, but a very familiar redhead ran at his side.

Steve wanted to sink to his knees in relief but there was no time for that. Nat’s hair was in the same fancy braid but was red all the way through. She snatched the gauntlet from Clint and charged straight into the fray.

Steve killed two more alien dogs before he could look for her again. Her hair caught his attention like a lighthouse leading him home. Bruce was in full Hulk mode, and Nat tugged at the arm that wasn’t ruined. “Hey Big Guy. Wanna give me a lift?”

The Hulk grunted. Steve nearly stopped breathing as he picked her up and threw her across the swirling battle.

He was certain this was the end – that he would have to live with Nat dying twice – but she was plucked from the air by a teen in an Iron Spider suit. His enthusiasm carried even across the melee. “Woah! That was crazy! How did you know I would catch you?”

“We spiders have to stick together.”

Queens laughed, breathless and nervous and so, so young, while Nat leaned back in his grasp and looked up at the sky. “Hey Danvers,” she called. “Wanna prove that we coulda won the first time if you’d been around?”

Then Carol was there, a swirling bullet of energy that had literally ripped through Thanos’s warship, hovering in the air with long hair and just a trace of vulnerability.

Nat held out the gauntlet and nothing got in the way – none of Thanos’s children, not some alien monster or Thanos himself. Carol took the gauntlet, and it reformed around her right arm as if it was made for her. She didn’t scream as Bruce had, didn’t grit her teeth against the radiation that was charring her from the inside out, like Tony. She glowed like the stone that had given her her powers, her features set in an expression that said she was made to do this – and maybe she had been.

“Hey Thanos,” she called, but she didn’t move any closer, and while he screamed for his armies it was already too late. “Eat dust.”

She snapped her fingers.

The nightmares fell away.

“Huh,” Tony said from his spot in the middle of the fray. “That was not how I thought that was gonna go down.” He looked up at the sky and whistled. “Hey Danvers. You can be team captain now. You earned it.”

And then Queens was there with his rambling enthusiasm. “Mister Stark! Mister Stark! Did you see that? I was fighting off bad guys, and then I see someone go flying through the air, and I catch her and it’s BLACK WIDOW! It was crazy. And then she gave that floating lady the gauntlet and we won. It was SO COOL! Who is that floating lady by the way?”

Steve sank to his knees, and laughed, and found that he couldn’t stop.

* * *

He slept for a day and a half and woke to a world oblivious to its rescue. He went to a coffee shop and watched people take about sports games that had never been played and jobs that should have been disrupted.

It  hadn’t been like this in his universe. There had been joy – so much joy felt by so many even though Steve hadn’t been able to feel it himself – but there had also been confusion and chaos and uncertain. Half the world had moved on, and the half that was returned hadn’t quite fit into the new world they had forged, as empty and melancholic as it was.

This world was just exactly as it had been, flawed yet brimming with the possibility of another oblivious tomorrow.

He found it soothing, but he also knew it was time to go. He had one stone left to deliver, and there was no place for him here in this timeline. He could hear the Ancient One in his head, as he’d so often heard Nat, telling him it was time to go and find his own destiny.

But there was something he had to do first. After ten years of waiting he figured he deserved a proper goodbye. He couldn’t even come up with a reason not to. He didn’t know what came next – in this timeline or his own.

With the Compound destroyed he had no idea where his friends would be. But he knew Bruce had to go back to the Compound grounds to build a new time machine, and he was pretty convinced Bruce would know exactly where Nat would be.

The idea of them together made Steve smirk. It had been obvious, the way the two had danced around each other before Ultron, but Bruce had gotten so flustered when Steve brought it up. He wondered if today’s conversation would be more of the same.

But as he neared the Compound there was a large white tent pitched a few hundred yards from the ruins, and so many cars that Steve didn’t dare approach. He drove past the access road, parked near the woods, and crept through the trees, careful not to trip any of the alarms he knew were placed around the perimeter.

The Ancient One had given him a pair of binoculars that looked like they had been stolen from Stark Industries, capable of facial recognition and ridiculous feats of magnification. She had told him that he needed tools to complete his quest unseen and he had joked that he’d expected a magic talisman. But the tech had come in handy, and he’d never been so grateful to have it.

The Avengers were having a barbecue. Steve watched in awe as Sam and Bucky manned the grill. Though Steve couldn’t hear them he could see the playful bait and switch as they worked. The rest of his teammates milled about with their families, Clint’s kids playing catch with Scott’s daughter. Clint and Laura were arm and arm, and so were Bruce and Natasha.

It was all so right that Steve’s heart swelled and mended. His younger self was right in the midst of everything, trading jokes with Thor, clapping Colonel Rhodes on the back, bothering Bucky and Sam with advice that was clearly unhelpful. This was the victory they were supposed to have. And though Wanda still stood on the fringes – because Vision was gone, that had not been undone – and Thor still carried too much weight – there was so much hope in each interaction that Steve felt ready to face whatever came next.

Only Tony was missing. But Steve remembered him standing tall and unbroken on the battlefield, and figured he had probably gone home to his family. Who could blame Pepper if she never let him out of the house again.

Steve watched until the sun began to sink in the sky, knowing this was not the time to make an appearance. When Natasha got into a car and left the Compound, he followed.

She drove about twenty minutes through open country, finally coming to a stop in front of a small, two story house. Steve waited five minutes after she went inside to leave his car. He was just about to knock on the front door when he felt a knife to his throat, a gun barrel in his back, and a familiar voice rasping in his ear, “You think just because we won I’d be too distracted to notice you tailing me?”

“Nat.” Her name bubbled out, headless of the steel at his throat or the ice in her tone, because every second he’d relived was worth it for this moment.

She grabbed his shoulder and spun him toward her. He pivoted willingly, taking in her casual appearance and the singular color of her hair. She scrutinized him, the gun aimed at his heart. He kept his mouth shut, knowing he didn’t need to talk for her to reach a conclusion.

Then she smirked, tucking the gun in the waistband of her jeans. He wasn’t sure what she had done with the knife. “I knew there were two of you in New York.”

“You knew there were two of me?” he echoed. But he shouldn’t have been surprised. How many times  had she lectured him for being incapable of being subtle?

“There were rumors of Captain America helping people right after the Decimation, but I knew you were in Wakanda. I didn’t understand how you could be here twice until Tony made his time machine. You’re from the future.”

Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. “Something like that.”

“Something must have gone south to bring you back here. By the look on your face it’s me. So how’d I go?” She said it flippantly, as if it wouldn’t tear her apart to know her fate. He never would have told her, except it wasn’t her fate at all.

“You won a fight with Clint. On Vormir.”

He couldn’t read the emotions that flashed across her face, but he knew he had shaken her, and that wasn’t an easy feat. “Bruce already reversed that.”

Steve shook his head, hardly believing this was happening. “Not in my timeline he didn’t.”

“Your timeline?”

“I’m not from the future. Not yours anyway. Apparently when we retrieved the stone from New York we stepped on some butterflies. Loki wasn’t supposed to escape with the Tesseract. It changed things.”

“Like me being alive?”

“Yeah. God, Nat, it’s so good to see you.” Unable to restrain himself any longer he pulled her into a hug, careful not to squeeze too tightly even though all he really wanted to do was hold on and never let go. She’d never been much for physical affection, and this wasn’t something they did, but Steve buried his face into her neck and breathed her in.

After a few moments she ran a hand up his back, tentatively. Her chuckle sounded strained. “It’s okay, Old Man. I’m sure if I was gone I’d miss you too.”

When she pulled away she watched him closely. “You’re not going to try and drag me back to wherever you came from, are you?”

He didn’t let himself contemplate it, even for a second. Not when she’d built a life here. “Of course not.”

“Then come inside. I think we’ll both need a cup of coffee before this conversation’s over. Talking about time travel makes my head hurt.”

She led him through a foyer to a tidy kitchen and gestured for him to sit at the table while she brewed a pot of coffee. “You hungry?”

“Are you gonna offer me a peanut butter sandwich?”

She tilted her head at him, as if the joke didn’t quite land. “If you want one. But there’s leftover chicken parm in the fridge.”

“Now I know I’m not in the right timeline. Are you sure you’re Natasha Romanoff?”

“Shut up. Bruce likes to cook.” Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Steve thought he saw her blush.

Happiness looked good on her.

“Dinner would be great, actually. Thank you.”

It was so strange, to watch her pull a casserole dish from the refrigerator and scoop a heaping portion onto a plate rimmed with tiny blue flowers. Natasha was one hell of a woman, but she didn’t have a single domestic bone in her body.

“It’s hungry work,” she said with her back turned as she put the plate in the microwave. “Spying on all your friends from the woods.”

“You knew I was there.”

“I always know.”

And she always did. She was two steps ahead of the boys at all times, which is why she’d gotten the gauntlet to Danvers while everyone else was rumbling with Thanos. They’d needed her in that final battle and she hadn’t been there, so Tony had paid the price.

“Hey, Steve. Are you okay?” There was a steaming plate of food in front of him and Steve had no recollection of it getting there. One of Nat’s hands gripped his shoulder. He startled when the other came to rest softly on his cheek.

“Haven’t been in a long time,” he admitted. “But I think maybe I can be, now.”

“You’re older. I can tell. Soon the nickname might actually be appropriate. I didn’t think--”

“I didn’t think so either.” It had been strange, to look in a mirror at the Sanctum on the day he left and realize he didn’t look quite the same as when he’d arrived. The difference was even more striking now. “But apparently even miracle serums have a shelf life. That’s okay though. I don’t want to live forever.”

She frowned down at him, searching for something she couldn’t find. “But you’re supposed to _live_.”

“There you go again, telling me to get a life. Though it seems like you beat me to it.” His eyes scanned the room, the very picture of middle class America. She dropped her hand with a soft scoff, taking the seat across from his and nursing a cup of coffee.

“It’s an Air BNB. That’s a website—”

“I know what an Air BNB is.” He smiled, delighted by her surprise.

“Well you’re definitely not my Steve.”

He wished he was. Or more accurately, he wished she was his Natasha, and they were just enjoying some unexpected downtime between one catastrophe and another.  “Let’s  just say I’ve had a little time on my hands this go round.”

“You’ve been here for five years.”

“I’ve been here for ten years.”

“Why? Is the future in trouble? Do you need something from us? I’m sure you’re not supposed to tell me but that’s bullshit.”

He’d missed her concern – even in the years after the Decimation when they were barely in touch. She was the only one who didn’t expect him to be infallible.

“I came to return the Infinity Stones. And then I just stayed.”

“Why?”

“To see you. I needed to know that we got it right this time. That we got you back.”

“So you waited ten years? Couldn’t you just?” She mimed typing coordinates on a bracelet.

“That would have sent me back to my own timeline, where you were gone.”

Her knuckles were white against the mug in her hand. “That’s a hell of a long game, Steve.”

“But worth it.” He shrugged and speared another piece of chicken, which was delicious. Who knew Banner could cook at all, let alone well. “It wasn’t so bad. I watched a lot of movies about time travel. Figured out this whole social media thing. Learned to mediate. Hung out with a wizard.”

“If you pull a rabbit out of a hat I’m gonna lose it.”

Steve smirked. “She offered. I turned her down.”

“She?”

“Doctor Strange’s predecessor.”

“She make you a time ninja or something?”

“Or something.”

“How did you know I’d still be here when all this was over?”

He’d asked himself that a million times. The certainty, which had grown in power the longer he studied the timeline, was laid on a very shaky foundation of need. He couldn’t imagine waiting ten years only to find that she was still gone. So he hadn’t.

“I tried to get you back when I returned the Soul Stone. But eventually the Red Skull admitted you weren’t on Vormir any longer. That someone with an Infinity Stone had stolen you away. And I knew it wasn’t my Bruce. Because he tried but he couldn’t do it.”

“How come my Bruce could?”

He smirked at how effortlessly that turn of phrase fell from her tongue. “Seems _your_ Bruce had a little extra incentive in this timeline.”

“Don’t start with me,” she warned, rolling her eyes. “That joke got old about nine years ago.” Her hand darted out, snatched a piece of chicken and tossed it in her mouth before he could protest. Then she reached for a napkin from the center of the table and wiped the sauce from her fingers, dainty as a queen. “So you’re saying in your timeline Bruce and I never got hitched, so he wasn’t able to save me?”

Steve choked on his mouthful of spaghetti.

“Clearly we didn’t,” Nat said drolly. “Do you need the Heimlich?”

“No. I’m good,” he sputtered, trying to get the food out of his windpipe. “Gosh, Nat. I didn’t know that. Congratulations.”

“It was an impromptu thing. We were in Tibet on a mission. There was this old bald holy woman who offered to ‘bless our union’ and we thought, why the hell not? The pictures were amazing but they’re gone now. Bruce owes me another ring, too.” She fingered the skin on her left hand. “It’s been kind of a busy week.”

“You got married by an old bald holy woman?” Steve repeated.

“Yeah. You know her or something?” Natasha quipped.

It was impossible – ludicrous – because he was certain she was gone, had been from shortly after he had left her, but still he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been looking out for him even then.

“Maybe.”

“That’s really all it took?” Nat pressed. “Bruce and I get together and I get resurrected? That seems a little sappy to me.”

“The two of you never got the timing right. He was interested before Sokovia, I could tell, but then he disappeared. Something must have changed when you guys were tracking down Loki.”

“Bulgaria,” Nat said with a smirk that was soft around the edges.

“In my time you never went to Bulgaria. Bruce came back to warn us that Thanos was coming but you weren’t together. After the Decimation you went back to the Compound and Bruce went off on his own. I didn’t see him for years, not until Tony wouldn’t make the time machine so we went with Scott to see if Bruce would.”

As he remembered that fateful day the final piece clicked. It had been more than the strength of Bruce’s love that had saved Nat. It had been his strength.

“Bruce was full out Hulk when he snapped his fingers, right?” Steve asked.

“Full out Hulk as opposed to what, exactly? That’s an either or situation.”

“Not in my timeline it wasn’t,” Steve explained. “Bruce spent a lot of time alone after the Decimation. He described it as coming to terms with the Beast inside. He was big and green but he talked like Bruce. Thought like Bruce.”

“He was Hulked out all the time?” Nat sounded disinterested, but Steve knew better, the way her fingers trembled on her glass giving her away.

Steve reached out and covered those trembling fingers with his own. “If it helps he seemed completely at peace with it. More at peace than I’ve ever seen him. The public called him Professor Hulk. Kids came up to him in the diner and asked to have their picture taken with him.”

“All he’s wanted for so long is not to be feared.”

“I don’t think that’s all he wanted,” Steve couldn’t help but correct. “But he has that now. He’s okay. But he was Professor Hulk when he snapped his fingers. Stronger than Bruce, but not as strong as the Hulk. He told me later that he tried to bring you back too but he couldn’t.”

“The Hulk could handle the radiation,” Nat said, nodding. “He said that it was like he was made for this.”

“There was another difference,” Steve said. “When my Bruce snapped his fingers he didn’t rewind time to before the Snap. He just brought everyone who’d been Dusted to the present day.”

Natasha’s intake of breath was sharp. He could almost see the possibilities racing across her mind. “That was the original plan. Bruce had promised Tony that’s what he’d do – but rewinding time was the only way to save me.” There was something slightly haunted in her tone that Steve didn’t understand and desperately wanted to erase, for it reminded him too much of the woman she’d become in his timeline.

“Well I’m glad. And I think the rest of your world is too. No one even knows what happened – it’s incredible. My world’s a mess. It’ll heal, now, but people lost five years with the ones they loved. And there were so many who died in the aftermath who will never come back.”

“Clint must be a wreck,” Natasha muttered. “Don’t tell me that idiot blames himself.”

Steve wanted to tell her that he was fine, but it had never been in him to lie. “He’s not great. But he went home to his family. If anything can pull him through losing you it’s them.”

Nat nodded once, every line in her body sharp with resolve. “Will you give him something for me?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be right back.” She slipped out of the kitchen. Steve took his dishes to the sink and busied himself with washing them by hand, even though there was a half full dishwasher under the counter.

When Nat returned she was carrying two picture frames and an envelope.

She handed him the frames one by one. The first was of herself and the Bartons around a picnic table, the youngest in Nat’s lap and Clint’s arm thrown around his daughter while his older boy squeezed mayo onto a hot dog. The shot was clearly candid, the easy joy on every face absolutely genuine. Steve felt tears well at the back of his eyes and tried to blink them away.

“Laura took that the day Clint reunited with his family. He was so nervous he wanted me to come along. He said it was a good thing time rewound so he didn’t have to explain his tattoos to Laura. I told him it was a good think he didn’t have to explain the haircut.”

Steve huffed out a laugh and surreptitiously wiped at his eyes. “That was an awful haircut.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t judge, Mr. Sadness Beard.”

He thought about telling her the way his Natasha never dyed the blond, letting it grow out as a reminder, but decided it was not her grief to bear.

“Point taken.”

“Tell him not to blame himself. I can’t stand the thought of that. His family needed him. I knew that, even when I had a husband to come home to. I never doubted my decision. Not for a moment. Tell him I’m happy. And give him this. He’ll probably have a big laugh, but it sounds like he needs it.”

The second photo had clearly been taken on the battlefield. Amongst the smoldering ruins left behind by Thanos Bruce and Nat kissed under the beginnings of a glorious sunset.

“Sam thinks he’s funny,” Nat said drolly, and Steve laughed, utterly at peace. “I only let him live because it is a pretty epic picture.”

“You know, I’ve never known you to carry a single photograph, and here’s two from the last week alone.”

“You should have seen our place before the Rewind. What can I say? Love has made me such a sap.”

He tried to imagine his Natasha saying something like that, but all he could think of was that sterile room in the Compound, where all she had was drive and regret. “You have no idea how good it is to see you like this.”

Her smile evolved from something shocked into something warm that made her twice as stunning. “Well I guess I should leave you a parting gift too.” She fished her phone out of the pocket of her jeans, and before Steve quite knew what was happening she threw an arm around his neck and snapped a photograph. She tossed the phone to him with a laugh. He looked just as dazed as he felt but there was her dazzling smile, captured for all eternity – or at least until the fall of the digital age – and that was definitely the best gift she could have given him.

“Now if you put doe ears on that or something I will travel across timelines to punch you in the face.”

Steve chuckled, the heaviness of the moment transposed into an almost giddy joy. “I got that reference, actually.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on Snapchat.”

“Well, no, but I know what it is.”

Nat clinked her phone against his to transfer the photo. “So, Cap. Now that you’re convinced that I’m alive, what’s next?”

It had been such a long time since he’d wondered that, but he wasn’t afraid of the answer anymore. “One stone left to deliver, and then back home. But there’s one last thing I need to do in this timeline. Do you know where Tony is? He wasn’t at the barbeque.”

Nat paled, and for a moment she was the woman he knew. The change was startling and sent sudden panic skittering through Steve’s veins. “Why do you want to see Tony?” she asked slowly, with infinite care.

“The same reason I wanted to see you. Because in my world he’s dead. You weren’t there to get the gauntlet to Danvers, so Tony had to use the stones. He turned Thanos to dust, but the power killed him. In my world the Avengers didn’t have a barbecue today. They all went to Tony’s funeral.”

Nat blanched and muttered “shit” under her breath. But she shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “Tony isn’t going to want to see you.”

“I know me and Tony have a complicated history, but we mostly worked it out. We were on okay terms when he died, but I just need to know that there’s a world where Tony’s okay at the end of all this.”

“You’re in the wrong place then.” There was something so dark in Nat’s tone that Steve shivered.

“I was at the battle,” Steve argued. “I know Tony was alive.”

“Pepper’s dead.” Steve felt that like a gunshot to his chest, but Nat kept talking and he kept bleeding. “When time Rewound she’d been at the Compound coordinating a search for Tony. No one realized that when Thanos crashed into the building. She was gone by the time Tony went looking.”

“And Morgan?” Steve whispered, imagining that sweet little girl missing her mother, two sets of Tony’s eyes utterly lost.

“Morgan was never born, Steve. Not after Bruce turned back time.”

“Fuck.” But the vulgarity couldn’t convey all he was feeling, the sudden rage at the unfairness of it, the entire world getting their happy endings but Tony receiving only what he’d most feared _. Bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I found? I have to, at all costs._ “Fuck!” he said again, slamming his fist so hard against the table that the wood broke under his hand.

“Yeah. We’ve been taking turns looking in on him. Bruce is afraid he’s going to do something stupid – try to mess with the timelines or something. I think he’s more likely to drink himself to death.”

“God, Nat.”

“I know. It’s awful. No one’s been able to get through to him. I think Peter might have a chance, but no one wants the kid to see him like that.”

“I have to see him.”

“Why? What good is that going to do? He’d not going to want to hear about a world where he died a hero. Not when I’m sure he’d prefer that to the alternative.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know why!” He was practically shouting at her and he didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help it. “I just have to. Call it penance. Or atonement.”

“I get that. I really do. But what do you have to atone for, Steve?”

“I left him bleeding in Siberia, for starters.” There was a regret he’d never been able to escape from, even halfway across the world. “And if I had just told him that I knew Hydra killed his parents maybe we could have stood together and taken Thanos out the first time round.”

“There’s a lot of blame to go around for what happened with the Accords, and none of it will fix a thing.”

“I have to see him, Natasha. Just give me his address, please. I’ll visit him in the morning and then I’ll be gone.”

She watched him for a few moments before pulling a pad of paper from a drawer under the counter and writing down an address. “Just remember that I warned you. You won’t be able to unsee this. You might prefer your battlefield martyr.”

Steve took the paper, folded it carefully, and stuck it in his pocket. “I owe him this.”

Natasha reached out to grab his forearm. He allowed himself to float in the familiarity of the contact, tethered to one another by regret and despair.

“I should go,” he finally said. He wished the night hadn’t ended like this – that her happiness hadn’t been at the expense of Tony’s. But he’d always have the selfie and the photos and the knowledge that in at least one possible outcome she was thriving.

“Or you could stay,” she offered. “Bruce probably won’t be home tonight. He wants to get the time machine working so you can get those stones back. I won’t tell him you take a ten year detour.”

That felt like a reward he didn’t deserve, not in light of the latest revelation. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Oh come on. Lifetime’s airing a _How I Met Your Mother_ marathon. It’ll be just like old times.”

“Not without Tony reminding us constantly how he thinks Robin looks like Miss Hill.”

Natasha made the popcorn and Steve followed her without actually agreeing. She dozed off sometime after midnight slumped against his shoulder, and he pulled the blanket around her and watched her sleep, glad for these stolen moments. His sickness over Tony had begun to fade. When he saw him in person he’d think of something to say.

Bruce came in sometime after 3am, wan and weary and entirely human. “So that’s who the car in the driveway belonged to,” he whispered.

“Thank you for loving her,” Steve replied, not an answer at all, but something that needed to be said.

Bruce cocked his head, a soft smile chasing away some of the weariness. “How could I not?”

* * *

Bruce made omelets in the morning while Steve gave him a brief recap of his time traveling adventures, and then Steve headed into the city. The address Nat had given him was in downtown Manhattan for a towering skyrise that was clearly meant to be a high class hotel that had never been opened. The Stark name was splashed all over it.

When Steve stepped inside an ear piercing shriek was heard and white lights flashed from the ceiling.

“Intruder alert. Intruder alert,” pealed a familiar Irish voice.

“No babysitters needed today,” growled an even more familiar voice. “Can’t you take a hint? Get out!”

The lobby has been converted into a workshop, the front desk now holding a holo-table projecting something that looked a lot like their time machine. There were at least two robots clustered around scraps of metal and circuitry.

Every flat surface held at least one empty bottle of scotch.

Steve didn’t think it was an exaggeration to say that Tony had looked better dying on the battlefield than he did now. His grey tank was wrinkled and stained and his eyes were bloodshot behind the yellow lenses of his glasses. His hands trembled as they clutched the edge of the table, and his hair was as wild as the look on his face, as if Thanos himself had just walked through the door.

“Tony,” Steve said, horrified to see the man in this state, but pity was clearly the wrong card to play.

“Not in the mood for a lecture, Steve. Get out.”

Thirty seconds of the siren was already giving Steve a splitting headache. If Tony was as drunk as he seemed Steve didn’t know how he could stand it.

“Can you turn that off?”

“Can. But I won’t. Don’t like it? Get the hell out.”

“I’m not leaving, Tony.”

“Wanna bet? I designed that sound to cut right through those super soldier senses of yours. I can do this all day. You can’t.”

“Damn it, Tony. I just want to talk to you.”

Tony stepped away from the table, grabbing a half empty bottle as he swayed forward. “Well I don’t want to talk to you. I’m done talking. Whatever it takes, we all said. Over and over. Whatever it takes. And I had one condition. Just one. Maybe I’d die, but Pepper and Morgan had to be safe. That’s all I asked of the universe. So why the fuck did everyone else get to live and my family had to be the sacrifice?”

He wasn’t quite the only one, but Steve knew he’d get nowhere making that argument. Thor had shouldered his grief like an overweight golden retriever desperate for attention, but Tony was a wolf without his pack, starved and snarling.

It felt too much like when Tony had gotten back from space, and he’d been anxious to place the blame on Steve when it had been clear he’d been wrecked over the loss of the kid.

This was less Steve’s fault, but it hurt just as deeply.

“I’m so sorry, Tony.” Steve picked his way around towers of pizza boxes and puddles he didn’t want to identify until he stood in Tony’s personal space. He reached out to grasp the man’s forearm. Though he jerked away he didn’t deck him, and Steve considered that progress.

“Why did you have to come find me?” Tony rasped, his voice little more than a wrecked whisper. “Why couldn’t you just let it go? It had been five years. The world was moving on.”

“Have you seen Peter lately?” Steve felt like a jerk asking, but he thought of the way Tony had hugged the boy on the battlefield, and the unbridled admiration that shined in the kid’s eyes whenever he looked at his mentor. The man clearly needed a lifeline, and maybe Queens could be his port in the storm.

“That was cold even for a man who spent decades on ice.” There was no heat in Tony’s voice. No coldness either. He sounded dead.  Deader than the recording played at his funeral. Deader than the martyr on the battlefield, charred and broken but still victorious. Some selfish part of Steve wished he’d taken Nat’s advice and hadn’t come. But the stronger part knew that he had to do something to fix this. He hadn’t been able to leave Nat on Vormir. He certainly couldn’t leave Tony in this hell. “Don’t you bring the kid here. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., cut the alarm,” Steve begged, feeling silly, as he always did, pleading to the ceiling, but his head felt like it was going to explode.

“Don’t you listen to him Fri, he’s not in charge around here,” Tony ordered.

The AI hesitated, and then the room went blissfully silent. “This isn’t healthy, Boss,” she answered after a moment, more contrite than most people Steve had ever met.

“Traitor.” Tony shook the bottle at the ceiling but the action set him off balance. He stumbled backwards, hit the wall, and slid down it, keeping his knees tight to his chest.

Steve snatched the nearest bottle and settled himself across from Tony, his back against the table. “To Pepper,” he said, and he raised the bottle in a toast. “She was one hell of a woman.”

The scotch burned on the way down, even though his metabolism would keep him from getting drunk.

“You have no idea.” Tony raised his bottle, though he lowered it without taking another drink. “Putting up with me for so long. Running the company. Being an amazing mom.” Tony slammed the bottle against the floor and the sound made Steve jump.

“And Morgan. The best thing I ever created by far. That girl was gonna fix this shitty world. Now she’ll never even see it.”

“She loved you. You gave her the best years you possibly could.”

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say, because Tony’s whole body shuddered, his breath hitching. But he put down the bottle. “Three thousand, she said. She didn’t know how crazy that was. How much it meant. And I love her just as much. But she’s not even dead. She’s just erased. I don’t even have a picture.”

Steve thought of his compass and the photo of Peggy; how it had reminded him, even in his darkest times, of how she had lived. It wasn’t fair that Tony didn’t even have that.

“Can you fix it?” Steve asked. Because that’s what Tony did. What he’d always done. Sometimes he broke things, because he was brash and impulsive and opinionated, but he had the genius and bull-headed persistence to build them back. He’d single handedly revolutionized the world’s energy sources and telecommunications systems and made superheroes a part of modern culture, and then he’d designed a time machine practically overnight.

Tony looked around the lab and then shook his head. “There’s nothing to fix. Time doesn’t work like that. I can’t change what’s already happened. I’m not even sure if I could go back, just to see her again. What Bruce did – that wasn’t science, that was space magic. The very first time love was stronger than physics. We might be writing over those years like a VHS tape.”

There was something so final in his voice. Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Tony so resigned.

“It was supposed to be me.” Tony’s eyes were closed, and he was leaning back against the wall as if it was the only thing holding him up. “I was going to make the sacrifice play. I said goodbye to Pepper and Morgan and I hoped I’d come back, but God, I just felt like I wouldn’t. There was a reason Strange bartered for my life and I thought it was became it had to be me who took that purple bastard down. I wish that it was. I’d die a million times if it meant my girls got to live.”

Steve could hardly breathe through the unfairness of it all – Tony, broken and mourning in this timeline while his family grieved in another, both desperately hoping for another outcome.

Perfectly balanced, the purple bastard would say, but there was no justice in his cosmic slaughter, just mania and bad economics.

Realization struck like Mjolnir against his palm, unexpected righteous power flooding him with the certainty he’d been so desperately missing. The reason why he’d come and stayed. One last chance to make everything right.

_You’re not going to try and drag me back to wherever you came from, are you?_

_There are always options, Captain._

_The very first time love was stronger than physics._

“Holy shit,” Steve exclaimed, pushing himself to his feet.

“Language,” Tony scolded, the response so automatic that it seemed to surprise even him.

“No more wallowing. It’s time to sober up. Your family needs you.”

“Don’t soldier me. Were you even listening to this heart-wrenching conversation we were having? My family is dead.”

“They are in your timeline. But not in mine.”

Steve had never flabbergasted Tony so completely. He took perverse pleasure in the way Tony’s mouth gaped open before he snapped it shut. “Say what now?”

Steve shook his left wrist where his time GPS gleamed. “Loki wasn’t supposed to escape with the Tesseract. My Tony changed that when the Hulk crashed into him outside the elevator. I came back to return the stones to find a whole other timeline, the one you’re living in. But in my world Nat and Bruce never got their timing right, so Bruce followed the original plan. He brought everyone back in the present day. But Nat stayed gone, so no one got the gauntlet to Danvers in time. You died, just like you thought you would, taking Thanos down.”

Tony swallowed, but his eyes were sharp and focused. “But Pepper and Morgan…”

“They’re okay. Devastated, but okay. ”

Steve could see it all so clearly now, as the Ancient One had taught him. His path had always been leading here, since everything began to fall apart. “All this time, all these years waiting around and I thought it was Nat that I needed to save. But Nat was fine. It was you—"

“I don’t need you.” Tony’s protest was force of habit now, and carried little weight.

“Yes you do. You needed me in Siberia and I left you there. You needed me when Thanos came and I was halfway across the world. I failed you so many times, Tony, and then I watched myself make the exact same choices and I’m sorry about that. I’m so fucking sorry. But there’s finally something I can do to make up for it. I can send your sorry ass home. Because you deserve to spend a quiet life with your family. Not a hero’s death, and certainly not a booze filled stupor. I’ve got one more stone to return, but I’ll come back here . Then you can take this bracelet and go, and maybe one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me for all I’ve done.”

Tony was shaking now, and Steve didn’t think it had anything to do with the substances coursing through his veins. “I can’t.”

Steve smirked. “You’re Iron Man. The world has yet to find something you can’t do.”

“I’m not the man they lost. The hero. I’m a wreck. They deserve better than me.”

“They don’t want a hero. They want a man who can walk through their front door and surprise them by doing the impossible. There might be a few differences from the last ten years, but you’re the same guy. The universe just dealt you a different hand.”

Tony rose and leaned hard against the holo table. “There’s something I don’t get. I can see how we,” Tony gestured vaguely at Steve, “ _you_ created a new timeline, although as I recall Loki always escaped and our little time heist just explained why. And Bruce could have taken the possibilities of branching timelines into account when he calibrated your bracelet. But you shouldn’t have been able to travel further down those branching lines. Any jump should take you back to the original timeline. You can’t leave here and come back.”

“Okay, so you’ll have to return the last stone. It’s just New Jersey left, so you know how that goes.”

“That’s not it. I have plenty of spare bracelets, and since I have yours I can recalibrate one to the exact temporal coordinates of your timeline.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“How did you get here, ten years after you came to return the stone?”

“The same way people got anywhere before you built a time machine.”

Tony blinked. It was the first time Steve could recall catching on faster than Tony. “I stayed.”

“You have a time machine on your wrist, and these are the ten years you choose to relive? Civil war. Exile. Thanos. The Decimation. For me?”

Steve scratched at the back of his head. “Technically it was for Nat. Or so I thought. Turns out she’s fine, so … got that wrong.” Steve  shrugged, feeling more like himself than he had in ages. “Worked out all right in the end, though. Seems like I was exactly where I needed to be. As long as a stubborn idiot doesn’t decide he’d rather drink himself to death than go back to his wife and kid.”

Tony huffed out a breath. “Well. Can’t let the world’s most ridiculously drawn out noble gesture go to waste, now can I?”

* * *

It took Tony two days to sober up and recalibrate one of the spare bracelets.

“Bruce confiscated all the Pym particles. He thought I would do something brash. As if Pepper would ever forgive me for collapsing the universe.”

But Steve showed him the four vials he still had tucked away. They’d learned from the time heist and brought extras just in case.

On the morning they said goodbye Tony was practically a different man. Though he was still pale and a bit shaky he’d trimmed his beard and combed his hair, his familiar Stark confidence oozing out to fill all the gaps where his vulnerability shone through.

Tony had offered to take the final stone back, but after learning Tony could make another bracelet Steve insisted on finishing the job himself.

He also insisted on giving Tony the original bracelet, just in case something was off with the recalibration of the spare.

“Aww, that’s sweet, Capsicle,” Tony had cracked, his humor gradually restored with his sobriety. “I’m more important than the integrity of an entire timeline.”

Steve hadn’t argued.

“What are you going to do once all the stones are back?” Tony asked. He’d been wearing the bracelet since he finished with Steve’s yesterday and he ran his fingers over it as he talked with an absentminded reverence.

Steve had never thought much of what was beyond this point. Save Nat … and then Tony. And now. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. It didn’t bother him much in that moment, but he knew once he got back to his time the familiar itch would rush in – the weight of protecting the whole messy world on his shoulders.

But it was hard to be too upset when Tony was half smiling at him, and he had come with a case full of Infinity Stones and left with a satchel of proof Nat was happy.

“You know, there is this thing called a life. After everything you’ve done, maybe you deserve to get one.”

“You’re not the first person who’s told me that,” Steve said dryly. Though maybe he had been, the other him, long ago. “But there was only one girl I ever thought about settling down with, and that ship sailed long ago.”

“I get that,” Tony answered. “I really do. The thing is, you’re wearing a time machine around your wrist. There’s nothing you can do to break the past – it’s already happened. But your future. Well – that’s still yours to be written. Just something to think about.”

The thought of that gave him a sudden thrill. How many times had he imagined showing up at that dance hall and sweeping Peggy off her feet? Even when Wanda got in his mind that’s what he’d seen.

It was reckless, and selfish, but maybe …

He shook the thought off and focused on the task at hand.

“I really am sorry, Tony. For everything. I thought I was right, but we were friends and I should have really listened to you. I should have tried harder to keep the team together. And I shouldn’t have let things get so far in Siberia.”

“It means a lot to hear you say that, Cap.” His hands stilled on the bracelet. “I was far from blameless. I was trying to protect the world from Thanos – and from us. When I found out Barnes had killed my mom – I couldn’t think straight. But I let that fester for far too long. And this,” Tony made an effusive gesture, both all-encompassing and vague, “all you’re about to give back to me. You are so forgiven there aren’t even words. Thank you.”

Then Tony was grasping his forearm and somehow it became an embrace, messy and desperate. Steve breathed deeply and felt no regret.

When they pulled apart Steve handed Tony his satchel. “Do you think you could give these to Clint? Just in case.”

Tony’s expression was more grin than smirk. “You betcha, Grandpa. Go and get her.”

“You hug that little girl and don’t let go.”

“I won’t. I may never leave that house again.”

“I’ll see you in a minute,” Steve quipped as he activated his bracelet.

One stone left.

* * *

It was a bit anticlimactic. After a ten year detour the Tesseract was restored with no one the wiser.

Steve slipped through 1970 without incident, even though he was distracted at every turn. Tony’s words ran through his mind like a record. _There’s nothing you can do to break the past. But your future. That’s still yours to be written._

He’d come to accept after he woke up from a seventy year freeze that there would be no normal life for him. Just an onslaught of duty, for it wasn’t just his country that needed him, it was the world. He’d needed that duty to keep him grounded. Give him purpose.

He’d mourned Peggy over and over, the girl who got away, the life he’d never had. She’d done exceptionally well without him, of course, but that only added to the allure. No other girl could compare and that wasn’t fair to them, so Steve didn’t.

Sharon had come closer than anyone, for she had some of her aunt’s spark about her. But that was exactly the problem. It felt wrong for the exact reason it felt right.

For all the times he’d imagined not standing Peggy up for that date, he’d never dreamed it could be possible.

Now he had a time machine on his wrist and a devil in his ear, and he could practically hear the music, smell the cleaner air, feel her lips against his.

Still he hesitated. Going back felt reckless in a way he’d trained himself not to be.

Without meaning to he found himself back at Peggy’s office. It was as austere as a Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s should be, but the photos gave off traces of warmth like the ones she hid under her serious exterior. Every one brought Steve back to simpler times and his heart ached for it. No cell phones and social media. Just real human connection, and heroism on a smaller scale.

He picked up the photo of himself, back when he’d first taken the serum. It was hard to imagine that he’d ever been that young.

“You’re not allowed in here,” a sharp voice scolded.

Steve dropped the photo as every part of his mind and soul wrenched toward her, his body following. His dream of meeting her at the Stork Club floated away like dust. He would never use the bracelet now. “Peggy.”

She gripped the edge of her desk, but she did not quail. “Steve.”

She was older now, but no less beautiful, her lips still red, her hair still perfectly curled. Authority looked good on her.

Steve had spent two decades learning how to talk to women. Could converse with Natasha just fine. Wanda, Pepper, Miss Hill. But looking at Peggy he felt like a bumbling teenage boy again, pre-serum, all the right words damming up inside him before something stupid dripped out.

“Marry me, Peggy.”

 _Stupid, Steve._ She’d been married once, he knew that, but he’d deliberately avoided the details. There was no ring on her finger now, but he hadn’t thought to look until after he asked.

She tilted her head back and laughed, the sound like a balm to his weary soul. “That’s not a no, mind,” she clarified once she’d regained control of herself. “But you owe me a hell of an explanation first. Where have you been all these years?”

He smiled, the weight of those years melting away at the fondness in her gaze. “Now that’s quite a story, ma’am.”

“You can tell me over dinner.”

Maybe he’d always regret leaving her alone at the Stork Club. But she’d been so young then, and he was no longer quite the man that had crashed into the ice.

Perhaps this was always how they were supposed to be.

“I’d like that very much.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips for a chaste kiss. “Maybe you know a place around here with some decent music. I still owe you a dance.”

She smiled, a hint of a blush on her cheeks, and Steve’s heart skipped in his chest. “You know what they say. Better late than never.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man did this take on a life of its own. Tony’s up next, though, and the Iron Family fluff is definitely coming. I’d love to hear your thoughts, theories, favorite lines. Comments make my day!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More bad language ahead … Tony’s having a rather rough time.

It was just his shit luck that the moment the rest of the world was restored he lost his.

He’d been adamant that Bruce had to bring everyone back to the present day and not revert to before they were gone, but the moment they realized Nat didn’t come back from the time heist Tony knew that wasn’t happening. Bruce had paced around the perimeter of the time machine, both hands fisted in his hair, and then he’d rounded on Tony. “I’m sorry, man. I know I promised. But I have to try.”

Tony had seen the glint of Bruce’s wedding ring when he finally untangled his hands, so he’d fought back the icy panic stealing over him. He gathered himself, knowing he needed to be a better man and a good friend, and grasped Bruce’s shoulder, halting his nervous fidgeting. “I know. I’d do the same for Pepper. Bring her back.”

It should have been okay. Because five years ago Pepper was already pregnant, though she didn’t know it yet. He’d been right, when he woke from that dream on the night before Thanos came and felt like a father. Pepper had found out during the weeks he’d been lost in space, and it was one of the first things she’d whispered in his ear after he’d woken up in the Avengers medbay after his meltdown at Cap. That he’d been right. That he was going to be a father. He’d known then that he couldn’t wallow in his failure. He’d be the father Morgan needed in this broken world, and he’d do it for Peter, the kid who deserved the affection he’d never been able to give.

It would not be the worst thing to watch Morgan grow up again, his little genius miracle child. There were mistakes he could avoid, and firsts he could witness again.

But he didn’t want Pepper to have to raise her alone. So he’d have to stay alive, which didn’t feel likely. Not with the way the wizard had bartered for his life. It was possible they just needed his brains to build a time machine. But Tony didn’t think so. He’d been gunning for the purple bastard since Wanda put a vision of him in his head ages ago, and the reality had been worse than Tony feared. It felt like the pieces had been put in motion long ago that Tony had to be the one to end this. Tony had stared down death through the end of a wormhole and half a dozen times besides, but it had never felt so unescapable.

His friends’ tires on his gravel driveway had sounded like funeral bells when they’d come to ask for his help. He’d chased them off after they walked on his grave, but once he’d figured out the theorem that made returning from the Quantum Realm possible he accepted what he’d known even as he left the Avengers Compound swearing never to come back. This life he built might be worth more than half of the world, but he wasn’t. He said goodbye to Pepper and Morgan, promising he’d see them soon, wishing the last thing he said to them didn’t have to be a lie.

He was supposed to be the one to break that promise.

When the battle ended and he had barely a scratch he could hardly believe it. And Peter was there, all hyperbolic enthusiasm, seemingly untraumatized by the way he’d felt himself dissolve and Tony had thought, for a few blissed out minutes, that somehow he’d been granted a fresh start. His kids would grow up together in a world filled with run of the mill crazies, not mass genocide, and he’d be every bit the father they both deserved. A nirvana he hadn’t earned, but would embrace with every grateful breath.

Then he had asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to locate Pepper, and he’d been plunged straight into hell.

She’d been in the Compound’s communications center, scouring satellite footage for spaceships, because five years ago he’d abandoned her again to chase a wizard through space. She’d been three rooms down the hall when Bruce turned back time, and far too close to Thanos’s impact.

He’d found her under a pile of rubble and ruined equipment, ribs crushed, back broken. The damage to her body had been catastrophic. Her death had been inevitable.

It had not been quick.

He sank to his knees beside her, the look of agony on her face burned into his retinas with a permeance he knew would never wear off. “No no no no no,” he keened, his hands desperately seeking for a pulse, a breath, a bit of warmth, but she was already cold and still, her puddled blood congealed.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., show me the footage since the explosion,” he ordered, knowing he owed her this, to witness her last moments when  he’d made her die alone.

The silence had lasted so long he’d thought the system had been broken. Finally the AI answered, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Boss.”

“You don’t get to decide that!” Tony bellowed. “You didn’t tell me she was dying when I had a chance to stop it, so SHOW. ME. NOW!”

The playback appeared in the air above him with a timestamp in the bottom right corner. Pepper had been standing in front of a large monitor, having a video conference with a NASA scientist when the room imploded. The screen flashed black as systems went down and then came back a few seconds later with the emergency generators. There was no audio—privacy regulations and all that—but Tony could hear the explosion in his mind, and he’d been right next to enough of them to know the way they pummeled your eardrums.

Pepper never should have known that.

Once the dust settled his eyes went right to her, her iconic strawberry blond hair duller than the blood staining the concrete pressing down on her chest. She was unconscious for six minutes and Tony prayed that was the end of it. Except her eyes had been open when he found her, and he _knew_ , with a dread and terrible certainty that left him sick and shaking.

She woke with a cough that turned into a convulsion, but the slab on top of her weighed several hundred pounds and she was wearing a power suit, not a suit of armor. Her struggles were clearly in vain, and while she shifted her arms her legs were entirely still.

He watched her mouth move, the syllables that should have been her salvation. “Why didn’t you alert me?” he demanded. “She called for you!”

“She didn’t make a sound, Boss. It appears her windpipe was crushed in the explosion.”

“Fuck!” He grabbed the slab he’d pulled off her and threw it against what was left of the nearest wall, not bothering to dodge the bits of refuse that ricocheted back at him. He emptied his blaster into what was left of one of the monitors, watching it explode.

“What good are you if my wife is dying in our own backyard and you don’t fucking tell me?” He’d never hated his own creation so vehemently, not even Ultron.

“I was waiting for instructions. There were no protocols for this situation.”

That was his fault too. If he’d only asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to scan the building he might have gotten to her in time. There had been wizards with portals everywhere, and even if it was too late—he knew it was too late—she shouldn’t have had to die alone.

She wasn’t the only one to die because of his stupidity. (Though she was the only one that mattered.) There were dozens of others, because before the Decimation this Compound was basically an active military base.

And he was living before the Decimation now.

He’d been so busy wallowing he’d fucking _forgot_.

She mouthed his name at the end, after forty-seven minutes of agony, and something inside him snapped. With a guttural scream he lunged at the first piece of wreckage he could find and threw it with all his might, blasting his way through everything around him until F.R.I.D.A.Y. warned that his power was being depleted.

“Christ, Tony, are you trying to bring the rest of this place down?”

Tony glowered at his friend standing in the ruined doorway, and for one dark second he wanted to blast him out of the way. The War Machine suit could take it. Possibly. “Yes,” he said darkly, firing his next shot directly through the floor.

“She wouldn’t want this, Tony. You know that.”

“I know she wouldn’t want to bleed out alone while I forgot she was in danger.” Another shot, closer to Rhodey this time. “I know she wouldn’t have wanted to die before Morgan was even born.” The next shot took out a support beam, and Tony could feel the room tilt.

“It’s time for you to rest now,” said an accented voice. Tony felt something unfamiliar in his mind before he crumbled.

* * *

He woke a day later in a hospital bed, groggy from what was clearly a sedative.

But his mind was only unclear for a few blissful moments. Steve was by his bedside, and the devastated look on his face brought reality crashing back.

He had no reason to look so distraught.

“Tony,” he said, solemn voice dripping with pity, and Tony knew he couldn’t stand hearing anyone say how sorry they were.

Sorry wasn’t fucking cutting it.

“Nope. Don’t say it. Not hearing it.” Tony ripped the IV from his arm, ignoring the way it set the machines off in protest. He swung his legs off the bed and fought a wave of dizziness.

Steve reached out to steady him. “Whoa. You need to slow down. You’ve been out for almost eighteen hours.”

“Who’s fault is that?” Tony snapped. Part of him knew it wasn’t Steve’s, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “I gotta get out of here.” He couldn’t stay in a hospital, not when every second reminded him how Pepper had never made it to one. He didn’t deserve for people to care for him when he wasn’t even hurt.

“This isn’t a good idea.”

“Don’t care. Where are my clothes?” Tony scanned the room to no avail. It was always Pepper who thought of things like bringing spare clothes to break him out of the hospital. Even when they were fighting she’d send someone to do it.

He was on his own now.

“Screw it,” he decided, determined to walk out of the hospital barefoot and in a gown as long as he got out.

“Tony, just wait. We’ll get you some clothes.”

But Tony ignored him, not even looking back as he snarled, “Keep that witch out of my head.”

He nearly collided with Happy as he strode out of the doorway. His driver stopped short, taking him in with red rimmed, skeptical eyes. “Boss.”

“Don’t call me that,” Tony ordered, because all he could hear was F.R.I.D.A.Y. and her colossal failure that was really his failure. He was an idiot and Pepper suffered. Typical.

“Okay.”

Tony could sense the apology coming, and he couldn’t hear it. “Don’t say it,” he warned. “Just don’t.”

“What can I do, Tony?”

There was the question he so desperately needed. He felt an uncharacteristic rush of fondness for the man, which turned to bile moments later. Attachments were dangerous. “Find me some clothes and some shoes. And then get me the hell out of here.”

* * *

Once again Tony found himself basically homeless, which was bad luck for one of the richest men in the world. But his suite in the Compound was destroyed, the Tower was sold off, and his beautiful little cabin which he’d built with his own hands was now an undeveloped spit of land.

What he needed was a lab. He researched options from Happy’s couch, and found a Stark Industries hotel a few months from opening and threw enough money at it to repurpose the building. He called in favors at MIT to reclaim some of the equipment he’d donated and had it all set up within twenty-four hours.

There wasn’t time to create a new AI, as much as he wanted to, so he loaded F.R.I.D.A.Y. into the mainframe already installed in every Stark Industries property.

He was going to fix this, he’d decided on the drive away from the hospital. Because that was the only way he’d be able to live with himself.

He took enough caffeine pills to stay up for two days straight. Bruce found him on the second morning pouring over the schematics he’d recreated.

“I’m gonna need some Pym particles,” Tony said, glancing up briefly from his work. “Hank Pym doesn’t like me for some reason. Think it’s my old man’s fault. Not too many. But some for tests, and some for the actual mission.”

“Tony, what are you doing?”

Bruce’s voice was strained, and that was never a good sign. Tony glanced up again but the scientist wasn’t green around the edges.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m building another time machine.”

“There’s no mission anymore. It’s done.”

“It’s not done.” He’d always done best with an impossible task to distract him from his misery. He had tamped down his rage under sheer determination and scientific curiosity. But he could feel it so very close to the surface. “You got your wife back, and you sacrificed mine to do it. So you don’t get to tell me that I’m not allowed to bring her back.”

He thought maybe he’d feel better at the way Bruce flinched, but he just felt like a hollow ass. “It’s not about permission. It’s a scientific impossibility. Pepper wouldn’t want you to tear reality apart on her behalf.”

“She didn’t want to bleed out alone, either. We don’t always get what we want.”

“This is reckless. Messing with timelines could have dire consequences and you’re in no state to make the tough calls.”

He wasn’t wrong, and Tony knew that, even as he also knew he 100% didn’t care. “Then stay. Be the moral compass. Two minds are better than one and all that. We’ve done great things together. It could be just like old times.”

But Bruce didn’t seem to remember them as fondly. “We created a robot bent on destroying us and all life on Earth.”

Tony shrugged. “Then we stopped it.”

Bruce pinched his nose, his fingers spreading out to run across his forehead. “It’s a problem that you don’t see the problem here.”

“Whatever it takes, right? That’s what we said, over and over. That’s what Natasha said.”

“Stop bringing her into this,” Bruce snapped. “I can’t be a part of this, Tony, I just can’t. And I’m not giving you any Particles.”

“Then why don’t you give me the stones?” The idea had come to him as he was recreating the time machine – there was a far easier way to go about this. All he needed was a little space magic of his own.

“Are you mad?”

“No. I’m pragmatic. All that power. The stones brought billions of living organisms back to life across the entire universe. One more resurrection shouldn’t be hard.”

“Do you hear yourself? Resurrection. That shouldn’t be possible. We’re not gods.”

Tony shrugged. He’d rather choose science, but there was a lot nowadays that he couldn’t explain. Use the tools in front of you – that’s how he survived. “I think Thor would beg to differ.”

“No one is supposed to wield so much power. Where does it stop? You bring back Pepper–who’s next? Why not Vision? Loki? Wanda’s brother? Coulson?”

It was clear from his tone that Bruce thought that was some worst case scenario, but Tony relished the thought of a world without loss. “Why not? Maybe not Loki, cause he’d kind of a dick, although Point Break does seem real broke up about him. Also, newsflash, Coulson’s already alive because Fury decided to play God years ago.”

“Coulson’s alive?” He’d thought maybe Bruce knew – it wasn’t the best kept of secrets once S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, but Maria Hill was on his payroll – but it was clear Banner had thought the agent’s sacrifice had stuck.

“Yep. Good old Fury and his secrets. But if he can do it, why can’t I?”

He thought maybe he’d been convincing enough, but after a few silent moments Bruce shook his head with an aggravated sigh. “You can’t just use the stones.”

“You did.”

“That was the Other Guy. The radiation would kill you.”

There were others he could ask to do it. Carol was probably strong enough – she thought she was, anyway. Thor would risk it if he got his brother back in the bargain. The Hulk could do it again, if Tony somehow got Bruce on his side.  But the truth was Tony didn’t want to ask any of them. This was his mission now. “If it brings them back then I don’t care.”

“That’s why you’re dangerous. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“I need to get them back. Then I’ll stop.”

Bruce used to be the easiest one for Tony to sway, besides Rhodey. But Ultron had broken something between them. Bruce had always been cautious, and he had seen firsthand how Tony was not. “I can’t help you, Tony.”

It turned out that Tony was even more alone that he’d thought. “Then get out and don’t come back,” he said coldly, turning back to his machines.

* * *

The pills wore off. That night forty-seven minutes stretched into hours, and this time Tony could hear Pepper gasping for breath, pleading for him to save her. She died with his name on her lips.

The next morning he opened a bottle of scotch.

* * *

He was two-thirds of the way through the bottle when Steve arrived that afternoon.

“You’re drinking again,” Steve remarked as he walked through the door and surveyed Tony’s crumbling domain. He’d made minimal progress, and may have thrown a few tools in aggravation.

“Thanks for the judgement, Captain Obvious. It’s been kind of a shit week.”

“You worked so hard, Tony.”

He didn’t like the guilt clawing up his windpipe. The alcohol was supposed to numb his pain. “Doesn’t fucking matter now.”

“It matters to me,” Steve said softly. Too soft. Sappy. “To all of us.”

Booze had always made him just a little more honest. His walls started to come down when he didn’t remember to keep them up. “That’s not enough.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

He didn’t want to hear that. “That’s not enough either.” He could feel the tears burning behind his eyes, but he didn’t want to let them fall. Not in front of Steve, Captain Complicated, and not when he couldn’t quite remember how mad he was supposed to be at him still.

They’re been good back in 1970, he thought.

But nothing was ever going to be good again.

“Nat’s been helping with the funeral arrangements. The service is tomorrow.”

“I know that,” Tony snapped. “Happy’s been texting me all the details.”

“But you haven’t been answering his questions. Do you want to be one of the pall bearers?”

“Nope.” That answer was easy, because there was almost nothing he’d like less than to carry the box that held her broken body.

“Okay. I understand. What about the service. Do you want to say a few words?”

What the hell was he supposed to say? _To Pepper Potts. The woman I disappointed time and again, who loved me even though I constantly abandoned her. The brain behind my company, the heart behind my mask, the mother of my child that none of you remember existed._

Just the very thought sent panic skittering through his veins like spiders. His neck felt too warm while his fingers went ice cold. He couldn’t get up in front of all those people when he would surely collapse, and she wouldn’t be there to put him back together again.

“Tony.” The feel of Steve’s super-strong grip on his shoulder brought him back into the moment. He focused on breathing until he could feel the air rush back into his lungs.

“Nope. Don’t want to say anything. I can’t.”

“Okay.” Steve sounded disappointed, and Tony hated that, because  of course he was failing Pepper again but for once he’d wanted Steve to be on his side. “You’ll be there, though, right? Two o’clock.”

Pepper had been close to her family once, but she’d left them behind to take a job at Stark Industries. They’d never approved – of the weapons the company sold, her playboy boss, or the scandal he’d made of her. She’d lost her mom and both her brothers in the Decimation. Her father had come around in the years that followed, the disappointment in her choices less strong than the devastating loneliness of being one of the few left behind. Tony had won him over eventually, once he’d witnessed his single minded devotion to his family in the wake of the crumbling world. They’d both wanted nothing more desperately than for Pepper to be safe and happy, after all. But all that progress was erased, forgotten. There was a whole slew of Potts’ again who thought him nothing more than the thief of Virginia’s dignity. He couldn’t face them. Not when he was likely to break down and tell them they were right. It wasn’t just her dignity he had stolen. It was her life.

They would curse him in his absence, maybe leak it to the press, but at least he wouldn’t be there to witness it.

“Hard pass. Potts’ funeral is superfluous, because she isn’t going to stay dead. I won’t accept it. I can’t. I’m of more use here.”

Cap let out an aggravated sigh. “You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”

“I regret not saving her. There’s no room for anymore.” Tony gestured at the room – at the mind bending schematics he’d recreated and all the tech he’d built with his own hands. He didn’t know what the answer was, but it had to be there, hidden between something he’d created and a possibility buried somewhere in his brain. “I’m going to fix this. Because that’s what I do. I’ve never met a problem I couldn’t solve. Even Thanos – took five years but I did it. This is not going to be the first time that I fail.”

Steve’s stricken look made it clear that he didn’t believe him. Tony’s confidence faltered.

He’d never thought Steve looked much like Howard, though he’d heard the stories time and again, how they used to be buddies. But their features blurred together now, their disappointment too much to take.

“Just get out of here!” He meant to yell but it sounded more like a plea. “I’ll show you. I’ll show all of you.”

* * *

Steve’s disbelief had spread like palladium poisoning with swift and crippling power. By the time Natasha found him the next day he’d accomplished nothing more than installing an alarm to keep his so-called friends away.

The problem before him which he’d been so certain must have a solution seemed unsolvable. The theorems were more incomprehensible now than they’d been when he was a kid.

There was a good chance that all the scotch he was consuming wasn’t helping. But it was the only thing that could tamp down the panic, now that the science had stopped providing solace.

F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice was shrill as she warned of an intruder, but he didn’t put in the earbuds that would filter out the sound, as grating as it was. That was a comfort he didn’t deserve, today of all days.

Unfortunately Nat lacked the enhanced senses the sound was meant to target, and she had more patience that most of her cohorts. Her eyes flashed up towards the ceiling as she located the nearest speaker, and then she strode towards Tony as if the piercing noise was of no concern.

She was dressed in a simple black dress, her hair knotted back. Tony waited for her to tell him that his absence was unacceptable, that she’d worked too hard putting the funeral together and Pepper deserved for him to be there.

Instead she silently surveyed the room before sinking against the wall that was currently doing it’s best to hold Tony up. Once she was settled she reached into the small bag she carried and pulled out a silver flask. “Guess I don’t need to hide this then.” She held it up to Tony in salute, and then took a lengthy swallow.

Vodka, surely, his mind absently supplied. It was easy enough to forget, but in moments of grief or stress Natasha’s Russian showed through.

“When Fury assigned me to your case it was clear you had a thing for her. I’d read both your files, and I thought there was no way in hell she’d go for it. But she was jealous of Natalie Rushman. That’s when I knew you had a chance. I’m not often wrong. But I misread that one.”

“She’d be better off if you hadn’t,” he whispered, his voice raw. He’d woken from another repeat viewing of her death, and spent most of an hour screaming.

“Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t get to know that. But you loved her, and you’re much less of an ass than you used to be.”

He tried to laugh, but it turned into a sob. Nat shifted until their shoulders were touching. He collapsed against her, and her arm reached out to hold him there.

“I’m sorry that I’m here and they’re not.”

It was the truth that had hung between them since she walked in the door, ugly and raw. It had been festering since the moment he knew Pepper was gone. But he found, as she sat there beside him, he was not awful enough to voice that he would have traded her away. “I would have done the same as Bruce. Protect what you love, whatever the cost. I know that. But I’m still livid.”

Nat took another swig of vodka, and then handed him the flask. “Sometimes the universe sucks.”

The vodka tasted far worse than the scotch, but he was in no state to refuse a gift. “Why wasn’t I good enough? I know I was a shitty kid, and I did some bad things when I took over the company. But I’ve tried, each and every day for fifteen years, to make up for it. How many times have I saved the world? Terrorists and robots and honest to god aliens. I thought it was enough to make up for what I’d done. If it wasn’t I should have been the one to pay for it. Not them.”

Natasha’s grip tightened on his shoulder, but she didn’t say anything. Not for a long time. She just waited as he tried to pull himself together.

“Peter Parker’s been asking about you,” she finally said.

Tony jerked out of her grasp. “Don’t you let him come here. I don’t want him to see me like this.” Peter’s disappointment would be too much to stand. Tony wanted to remember him as he’d been on that battlefield, miraculously restored, solid in his grasp and just as spirited as always. For some unknown reason that kid looked up to him, even though Tony failed him again and again. He couldn’t lose that too.

She hesitated far too long. The Widow was never indecisive. “Please, Nat. Don’t make me beg.”

“All right. For now.”

“For always. Promise.”

“This is really the plan then?” For the first time she sounded sharp, like the weapon she was. “Give up and drink yourself to death? She wouldn’t want that, Tony. Neither of them would.”

“Yeah well. They’re not here to scold me, are they?”

“They’re not the only ones who care about you. Do you have any idea how that kid looks up to you?”

“What do you want me to do, be his father?” Even though he was lashing out his mind caught on the possibility, just for a moment. There had been errant thoughts through the years, often when he’d catch a glimpse of the photo by the sink, but that kid had never been his to claim. “I’m nobody’s father. Not anymore.”

“That’s your choice, in the end.”

Natasha got up, taking both the flask and his nearest bottle of scotch with her. “I’d hoped, after everything you’d been through, you’d make a different one.”

* * *

Someone new came every day. While Tony registered they were trying to help he quickly tired of their platitudes and sideways glances. The alarm wasn’t as effective as he hoped, but his surly behavior normally got rid of them pretty quick.

Clint strode into the room six days after Pepper’s death. Three seconds after the alarm started the speaker exploded in a shower of sparks, an arrow embedded in its center.

“D’you just carry that thing around?” Tony slurred.

Clint set his bow and arrow down on the nearest free surface with a shrug, tossing a rancid bag of uneaten takeout to the floor.

“I’m not as patient as Nat.”

As always he found the highest vantage point, a stool from the bar that never was. He dragged it into the lobby and perched on the edge of Tony’s disaster zone.

Tony felt ridiculous slumped on the floor, so he pulled himself up into the nearest chair. “Whaddya want?”

He wasn’t used to having these conversations in quiet. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s screeching was a shield that protected him until he could blast he way to the inevitable conclusion.

“I’m not judging. I killed a hundred seventeen men with my bare hands. I know how much it hurts.”

Tony supposed he did. Though they’d been gone in the blink of an eye Clint had lost four people that day, and Tony didn’t know this hurt could possibly be doubled.

Except that Clint had been left with a home full of memories. Tony had nothing to prove that Morgan existed. Now that Pepper was buried most nights he was haunted by his little girl. Most of the dreams started out all right – quiet moments together that had once been so common he hadn’t appreciated them properly. But he was always plagued by a growing sense of unease. There was something wrong about the shape of her face, and he couldn’t quite place it. Something off about the lilt of her voice. Sometimes she was just hazy, and while she didn’t usually know she was disappearing sometimes she did. “Daddy, I don’t want to go,” she begged as she crumbled into dust in his arms.

Tony was just so tired of waking up screaming.

He was tired of waking up at all. But every time he stared down the end of his repulsor he thought of Morgan and couldn’t do it. It was up to him to remember she existed. He owed her his suffering if it kept her memory alive – the girl who could have saved the world – the girl who had once saved his.

But the memory was slipping away. One week and it was already fading.

Once it was gone there’d be no use for him anymore.

Clint had had photos to remind him. Home videos and drawings tacked up on the refrigerator.

Clint had been rescued from his hell.

“You got your family back.”

“I know man. It sucks. There’s nothing I can say that will make it better. You probably don’t want me here and I get that. I just wanted to let you know that If there’s anything I can do, I’m your man.”

Tony knew what he could ask, and for one terrible moment he considered it. Clint was loyal to Nat, unconditionally, but if Tony played the grieving father card he might be able to convince him to get him some Particles. Or better yet, the stones. They were bound by a common desperation, and Tony was fairly certain from Barton’s bloody rampage that he would have watched the world burn if it brought his family back. Maybe he’d do the same for Tony.

Tony yearned for the stones. One quick snap to undo this unending agony – the radiation would burn away his sins and then he could rest, knowing his girls were safe. That Morgan would continue his legacy. Maybe he’d right a few more wrongs before he went. Leave the world a better place.

But the thought of that rotten grape gave him pause – his megalomania killing his own daughter. Tony could not become the thing that he’d feared so long.

It was a dark world indeed if Tony was a god.

The Pym Particles would be more forgivable. Clint wouldn’t even have to take them from Bruce. He could get them from Pym himself. But Tony had already broken up the band once. He didn’t want to cause a second Civil War. Especially when the Particles wouldn’t even help.

Bruce was fucking right. There wasn’t a way to fix this.

“You hug those little agents, Katniss,” Tony answered, feeling his last hope slip through his fingers. “Don’t you ever let them go.”

* * *

On the seventh day Steve returned, ten years older and half as self-righteous, with a convoluted story and a way out of hell.

Tony was half convinced he was a hallucination – another torment his mind had created to give him hope before ripping it away. Steve was the last one who should have arrived with solutions involving theoretical physics. But he hung around all day long, telling stories of crossed timelines and self-reflection that Tony only half listened to. He bustled around the room, throwing out moldy food and empty bottles. Then he ordered a mountain of takeout and insisted Tony eat something, pushing bottles of water at him all the while.

By the time Steve trudged upstairs to find one of the hundreds of unused beds Tony was beginning to wonder if maybe there was no punchline this time. He hadn’t drank anything in hours and the world was getting sharper around the edges. His head pounded and his stomach revolted but the room was still clean, and the jacket Steve had been wearing when he showed up was still slung across the stool Clint had sat on just yesterday.

Steve’s words were still in his head, stuck on shuffle and repeat.

_Your family needs you._

_Not in mine._

_They’re okay. Devastated, but okay._

It seemed impossible, but theoretically it wasn’t. He’d known branching timelines were a likely side effect of their little heists, and New York certainly hadn’t gone according to plan. But there had been no way to know what those timelines would be like. Tony had chosen not to think about it, for there was another version of him there who could work it out.

He never should have been able to travel there, aside from the entry point where they took the stones. The multiverse was a fascinating concept, but it held little sway over him when he had everything he needed.

But now.

Steve said Pepper had been there when he died – the kid too – and he hated the thought of them having to witness that. But he was selfishly glad that he hadn’t gone alone. If he couldn’t have a long life with his family that’s what he’d have wanted – one last glimpse of Pepper’s face, one last rambling soliloquy from the kid, then just like he’d said when he was lost in space – “As I drift off, I’ll think of you.” Dying a hero, knowing his family was safe.

He wasn’t that hero they had lost. He hadn’t stopped Thanos, and he hadn’t saved his wife, and he was no use to Peter. He’d told Steve that he’d go back but that had been more shock than anything. He still hadn’t believed it was possible. Now that it seemed it just might be he wasn’t sure that was the right call.

He didn’t deserve them.

They deserved so much more.

With trembling hands he retrieved the B.A.R.F. glasses that he’d buried in one of the front desk drawers. He’d fiddled with them countless times over the past week, contemplating putting them on, crushing them, or throwing them across the room in turns. Every time he’d eventually hidden them away – unable to face what they’d show him, unable to destroy his last connection. As Morgan’s face had faded he’d toyed with them more and more, but he still hadn’t allowed himself this.

These glasses were supposed to be therapy, to help someone come to terms with their memories and move on.

He hadn’t wanted to move on.

If he was going to leave here then he’d need their forgiveness.

He put on the glasses.

The hotel faded away, it’s modern chic décor giving way to his rustic little cabin. His breath caught at the way he felt immediately at home. He’d found peace there in a way he’d never expected, even after half the world was gone because of his biggest failure. He could feel the peace now, despite everything, despite how he didn’t deserve it.

There was Pepper on the couch with her ridiculous book about composting, and Tony might have crumpled except he wasn’t really standing at all. She was so beautiful, whole and at peace, and this was how he wanted to remember her, looking at him a bit skeptically because of course he was acting weird.

“I solved it,” he stumbled, because that’s what he’d said. That’s what he’d done, but now there was another task before him and he hadn’t quite solved it yet but maybe he was close to a breakthrough. Just maybe.

“And the it you are referring to?” She was so used to him, after all these years, off on his own little tangents and she was one of the few that knew how to pull him down to earth, get him to explain.

“Time travel. I figured it out.”

He watched her closely now and he saw how she knew it was the end for them. Their simple little existence where they mostly forget the rest of the world would be lost if he did this. Losing him has always been her greatest fear and he knew that, but still she gave him the okay, didn’t let him take the out when he says that he could dump the plans in the lake and move on.

It was supposed to be him that never came home again, and they both knew it.

In reality she’d taken him to bed and they’d both tried to pretend it wasn’t the last time. He’d tried not to let his dread show but she’d cried as he’d held her and he hadn’t slept that night.

But this time before she lead him to the bedroom he catches her hand. “What if this is the end, Pep? What if I don’t come back from this? You know what the wizard did on Titan. What if I take him down but I can’t come back from it?”

“We’ve known that was a possibility, Tony. We’ve always known. These past five years have been a gift.”

“But would you be okay? You and Morgan. I need to know you’ll be okay.”

This hadn’t happened. He doesn’t know she’d react, exactly, but his mind filled in the gaps and with the glasses he could see the tears welling in her eyes, the way she bit her lip in determination. “There’s a lot of grey area in okay.” She grabbed his other hand and gripped it tight. “We’ll be secure. Provided for. There will be plenty of friends around to help take care of us. I’ll raise that little girl to know how wonderful and brilliant and _aggravating_ her father was.” She tried to infuse the last adjective with humor but the barb fell short. “But we’ll miss you each and every day. I get it. Half of everyone for your life – that’s a trade you have to make and I’ll live with it but God Tony. I wish it didn’t have to be you.”

“What if it’s not?” He could feel his heart pounding out of his chest and he wasn’t sure he wasn’t having two panic attacks simultaneously. “God, Pep, what if it’s you? You and Morgan? What if these last five years – what if they get erased? Morgan would never be born. If I lost the both of you even for half the world – I can’t live with that.”

She didn’t answer, and he thought that maybe he stretched the illusion too thin. This was never how this conversation was going to go, not originally, not when he knew Morgan’s existence was in danger but never suspected he might lose Pepper too.

“What are you really trying to ask me?”

The tone wasn’t right – this wasn’t Pepper, not really – but the question was exactly what he needed to hear. “What if there’s a way? What if I lost you and Morgan, and somewhere in another timeline you guys lost me, and what if I had a chance to get back there? You wouldn’t be my Pepper, and I wouldn’t be your Tony, but you’d still be you and I’d still be me.”

Then her hand was on his face and she was looking at him utterly bemused. “God I’m glad I’m not a quantum physicist.” She chuckled, her hand drifting back to comb through his hair. His attention shifted to the contact and his mania faded. “Here’s what I know. What every version of me scattered across any possible universe will always know. I’ll always want you to come home to me. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” he parroted. Those weren’t Pepper’s words at all. Those were the Avengers’ words, Steve’s and Natasha’s and even his own. But Pepper had turned them into a command.

He had failed her once. Never again.

But there was one more memory he needed to revisit.

He blinked and he shifted to the kitchen the following morning, where Morgan surveyed him across the table. Every detail was perfect – from her long lashes and unruly hair to the curve of her slightly chubby cheek and the pout forming when he told her, “Daddy has to go to work.”

He didn’t want to say it. He just wanted to drink in the sight of her, enough of Pepper that she was sure to be a stunner someday, but enough of Tony that he was constantly reminded how he’d left his mark on something good. He’d been terrified to be a father but it had turned out to be his absolute favorite thing in the world. That little girl had owned him from the moment she’d be born.

“Why?” she demanded, as she had, because Pepper went to work sometimes but Tony always stayed there, stay at home dad extraordinaire, firm in his commitment to retirement both from business and from heroing.

“There’s something I gotta do, Little Miss. And I’m the only one smart enough to do it. If it works it’ll bring a lot of people back.”

“Like Petey?”

Tony’s heart got stuck in his throat, just like it had. He’d so desperately wanted to see the kids meet.

Morgan has always been too curious for her own good, the Stark shining through in her before she’d even been able to talk. She’d noticed the photo by the sink, and asked who the boy was.

Once he’d started to tell her they’d become her favorite bedtime stories.

“Yeah. Like Peter.”

He could see the wheels spinning in her head before she nodded once. “Okay. Worth it.” She took a bite of the pancake he’d made for her. “When will you be back?”

He remembered how he’d paused, caught in a moral quandary. He hadn’t wanted to lie, especially if it was one of the last things he ever said to her. But he couldn’t bear the thought of her thinking back, years later, and knowing that he had chosen to leave her behind.

So he’d shrugged then as he shrugged now. “Couple of days. Could be a week or two.”

In reality she’d accepted that. Asked for more juice and moved on. He’d left right after breakfast. She’d watched as he pulled Steve’s shield from the garage, whining about her favorite sled. He’d ruffled her hair, pulled her in close for one last hug and a flurry of kisses, and then watched her in the rear view mirror as he drove away to undo her existence.

Today she pressed the issue. “But you will come back.”

Not a question. A command. “I’ll try, Little Miss.”

“Trying’s not good enough. Promise me, Daddy.”

Once again the tone was wrong but the face was just right, staring at him with eyes bright with tears – his own eyes, filled with innocence he couldn’t remember.

He’d never been able to say no to her.

“I promise,” he swore, sealing his fate.

* * *

He slept hours without dreaming, and then got to work recalibrating the bracelet. Rogers seemed pleased with his progress, and even more pleased when he declared he’d be ready to leave the following morning.

Steve left around dinner time, muttering something about people he needed to see. Tony was glad for the privacy. As soon as he was alone he activated his suit and materialized his helmet.

He took a much needed shower and tried to make himself presentable with the limited supplies Happy had brought him. He sat cross-legged on the hotel bed, feeling almost as adrift as he’d been in space. Rescue seemed even less likely from his current situation, but he could see Morgan clearly again and he’d made her a promise.

But they’d all been right, every one of his friends who’d tried to pull him from his misery. He wasn’t alone here.

He couldn’t face them. Not when they’d seen him at his worst. There were too many apologies he was too raw to give and too many things he didn’t know how to stay. Maybe he’d figure it out after he saw his family again but for now this was the best he could do.

“Activate recording,” he commanded, staring at his suit for what he swore was the last time.

“Everybody wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn’t always roll that way. I know I’ve been kinda a downer. All those families reunited, and you had to leave your celebrations and come babysit me as I fell apart. Party foul. My bad. Let’s be honest, we’ve always known I’m a mess without Pepper, but that was a pretty epic meltdown. Sorry about that.

“Thing is, this world is so much more complicated than any of us knew. It’s not just time travel, not really. Turns out there’s a world where Pepper and Morgan still need me, and it’s abundantly clear that I need them so – this is my chance. I gotta take it.

“Don’t mourn for me. I mean, you can mourn a little. Cry a few tears, throw some sort of sappy memorial. Find a lake, have a picnic. Tell stories about my wild days and everything I did to make up for them.

“But then you gotta move on. Because where I’m going – that’s my happy ending. And while I’ll never see you again you better be damn sure I’m keeping that alternate version of you on your toes.

“Rhodey – thanks for always riding with me. That means more than I can say. I’m not sure what kind of hot mess you can find to hold together that tops me but I’m sure you can come up with something.

“Happy – you’ve done real good. Bet you had no idea what you were getting into when you took that job. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. I need you to look out for the kid now.

“Bruce and Nat – I’m sorry for most of the things I said after the mission. You weren’t wrong – either of you. I hope you adopt a slew of orphaned kids and teach them to be hippie pacifists. Stick it to Mother Russia.

“Steve – I’m not sure if we ever got our shit worked out or not but I forgive you.

“And kid – Peter – check your suit. Karen’s got something for you. I just want you to know that I’m proud of you. You’ll be the best of us someday. You’re already mostly there.

“So okay team, take care of the newbie. And take care of each other. Iron Man out.”

Tony cut the recording and gave himself a minute to steady himself. He should have gone to see Peter in person, he knew that, but he’d always hated goodbyes. Recordings were better, recordings lasted forever.

Recordings were easier.

He’d make it up to Peter in another life. He just couldn’t do it here.

“Hey F.R.I.D.A.Y., I need you to send this recording to Karen when it’s done. She should play it the next time Peter puts on the suit.”

“Roger, Boss.”

“Hey Underroos, it’s me again.” Tony ran his hand through his hair, feeling strangely nervous. “There’s a couple more things I wanted to say and I didn’t want the rest of the team listening. First off, there’s a college fund that should get you through undergrad and as many grad programs as you want, and then some seed money for whatever comes next. Happy’s going to keep an eye on you, so try not to give him too many gray hairs. He might also have a suit or two for you when you need it, but try not to burn though them too quickly, all right?

“Here’s the thing. I know you’re getting a raw deal. My dad used to say that no amount of money ever bought a second of time. And I don’t think I’m being arrogant when I say that you’d rather have me around than a pile of cash.

“I’m sorry about that. I really am. I wish that I could be the man you want me to be. I’m going to try. I just can’t do it here. Not without Pepper and Morgan. I hope you can understand that. I hope you get to be a father someday because you will understand.

“But I want you to know that you were never forgotten, in those five years that never were. I missed you all the time. Morgan loved to hear stories about you. Which was fitting because you were the reason I was even marginally ready to be a father. Because you swung your way into my heart despite how hard I tried to keep you out.

“I never told you how important you were to me, and I should have. I should be telling this to your face now but sometimes I’m a coward. You impressed me Pete, that very first time we met and you kept on impressing me even when you were driving me crazy. I was so terrified that you’d do something reckless – something that I would do – and get yourself killed. And then you kind of did, and if Morgan hadn’t come along that might have broke me. But she needed me. Needed me to be the father that you deserved.

I’m proud of you Peter, and I wish you a lifetime of good things. Try not to be sad. You don’t deserve anymore loss. Rhodey – Happy – hell, anyone on the team – they’re all good men, and they’ll look out for you. And if you think of me just know that I’m out there somewhere, happy, because of you.

Love you Pete.”

Tony ended the recording and wiped his hand across his eyes, surprised at how emotional he’d gotten. He wished he’d gotten to hug the kid one last time, but it was easier this  way. He couldn’t say all that again – not to this version anyway – and a clean break was easier.

But once he got back home he’d need to stop by Queens.

He set up a trust fund and dumped a few million dollars inside. Earmarked several millions more to get the Compound rebuilt.

When Steve came back with Bruce and Nat and several tubs of Avengers themed ice creams he didn’t chase them away.

When he jumped through the Quantum tunnel the following morning, he felt free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo … I guess it got worse before it got better.
> 
> The Iron Family fluff is next chapter, I promise.
> 
> I’d love, love, love to hear what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally reunites with his family. Happy Father's Day everyone!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to all the real life Tony Stark’s out there. Happy Father’s Day!

The first thing Tony heard after rematerializing from the Quantum Realm was a predictable, “You’re not Steve.”

The fact it was uttered by one of his least favorite murderers was only slightly less predictable. Bucky’s arms hung loosely at his side, mechanical and organic, and he didn’t seem particularly put out by the switcheroo.

“Really now? What gave it away? The hair? The abs? The lacking aura of extreme patriotism?”

“The height,” Barnes drawled, completely deadpan. If he was anyone else Tony might have given him a point for that.

Birdbrain was decidedly less calm about the situation. “Where the hell is Steve?”

“I think the more appropriate question is: When the hell is Steve? If I had to hazard a guess I’d say 1945 or thereabouts.” Tony looked past the confused remnants of Team Cap to the ruins of the Compound, trying to swallow down the sudden panic it inspired. Steve had warned him this Compound had been taken out too. That was fine as long as Pepper wasn’t in it.

“What is he doing there?” Wilson demanded.

“Then,” Barnes corrected. As Wilson scowled Tony bit back the desire to appreciate that.

“Hopefully loosening up and getting a life. But it is Steve so—”

“Haven’t you heard the stories?” Tony kind of hated the fondness in Barnes’ tone, the way he was more man than machine despite the arm, but he supposed that if he forgave Steve than forgiving his best friend was a necessary corollary. “Guy stands up one girl and never gets over it. He owed her a dance or something sappy like that.”

“So he’s not coming back?” Tony supposed Sam’s shock was justified. Especially since he’d missed all the time heist planning sessions.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him.” Barnes shrugged, the gesture so casually human. “We just gave a time machine to a man who’s deepest wish is to go back in time.”

“He’s laid down on enough wires.” He and Steve had come so far since he’d first said that to him, and Tony believed it wholeheartedly now. There was no doubt that man was a hero to his core, but what he really needed was a fine woman and a kid or two to love.

Needed or deserved? There was a chance Tony was getting those mixed up a bit. Same difference, though, in his experience.

“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

The voice was familiar, but too gruff. The quip was already on Tony’s lips as he spun, “Because I’m dead, you mean? Steve gave me the low-down—” but he paused mid-sentence as he took in Bruce’s appearance. “Whoa. He warned me about that too but man. That’s some look. Did you do that on purpose or did you just get stuck?”

The strange Bruce/Hulk mashup puffed out its chest in a way that left Tony unsure if it was proud or offended. “This took months of intensive lab work.”

Tony could think of a few comments about how he could have been better spending his time, but they’d be crass in this world where Nat was dead and Bruce apparently thought this was progress. He shrugged instead. “You do you, buddy.”

“You are supposed to be dead though.” There was absolutely no bite in Barnes’ tone, even though the men had tried to kill each other on more than one occasion. “Whoops. Did I just break the future? Cause Steve’s already breaking the past so I think it’s fine.”

“You can’t break the past,” Tony and Bruce corrected simultaneously, sharing a look afterwards. Tony felt a touch of that familiar fondness from the olden days, when it was easy to bond over how different they were from everyone else on the team.

“If Steve really isn’t coming back then I’ve lost interest.” Sam’s gaze shifted to Barnes. “You wanna grab a burger?”

Tony ignored him, sure Bruce at least would appreciate his big reveal. “You _can_ splinter off alternative timelines.”

“Yeah. That’s why Steve was supposed to put the stones back.”

“Oh he did – eventually. After you lot trampled on whole flocks of butterflies. Letting Loki escape with the Tesseract, for starters. You know I always wondered how that happened.”

“According to Steve that was _you,”_ Wilson said.

“Not me. Alt-Tony, yeah, apparently.”

Bruce tried to whistle, though it sounded more like a siren. “Does that mean there were three of you in New York?”

Tony mimicked an explosion. “Blows the mind, am I right?”

Bruce braced himself along the edge of the time machine, green fists clenched in contemplation. “I get why Steve would bring you here. Even how he could do it. By why would you come?”

For a moment Tony was back in that hell, spiraling. Sobered, he looked off in the distance at the ruins of the Compound and swallowed back bile. “Your world lost Tony. Mine lost Pepper.”

“Damn,” Sam swore.

“Tony.” Bruce’s voice was so soft it sounded almost human.

Tony shook off their sympathy. “It’s okay. It’s a long, rough story but the ending’s good. I’ll tell you some time. But first I want to see my family. Although, is Clint around? Nat sends her love.”

“Natasha,” Bruce whispered. “She’s--”

This wasn’t the time or place to tell Bruce that he’d been the one to save her. So Tony settled for simplicity. “Perfectly fine in the place I left.” He shook the satchel slung over his shoulder. “She sent souvenirs. Like I said, I’ll explain later. Now can someone give me a ride to my place? I’d call an Uber but that might cause a bit of a riot, since I’m supposed to be dead and all.”

“I’ll drive you,” Bruce volunteered.

That was not the response Tony had expected, but he supposed, if Bruce offered, he had to have a way to make it work.

The anxiety came on suddenly – that this was real and he was here. It was always easiest to snatch away what he most wanted when it was just out of his grasp. And if Bruce was green and Nat was dead then what other differences might exist that could be insurmountable?

“Think you could bring the car around?” Tony asked, searching for an escape. “Just gonna sit down by the lake for a minute.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He knew Barnes and Wilson must be wondering why he flaked. Bruce probably knew him well enough to figure it out. Or Other-Bruce had. This Bruce might have known the Other-Tony that well.

The dead one.

He had died here.

How had he been so flippant about that?

Tony stumbled over to the bench overlooking the lake and dropped his head between his knees. He tried to picture his happy place, just like his therapist had taught him ages ago, but this was a different lake and there was no tent beside it, no little klepto inside proud of raiding places she definitely didn’t belong. The house was gone. The memories were gone. His family was gone.

But not here.

He forced his eyes open. The sun was just beginning to set, and the colors were glorious. He’d laughed at Pepper when she liked to sit down by the lake while she was pregnant. Said he’d never met anyone less equipped to sit still. She’d turned that around on him, and she hadn’t been wrong.

By the time Morgan had set up her playtent there he’d loved the lake. Once he’d understood its peace he’d been loath to let it go.

There was a commotion back at the time machine. Tony didn’t turn around but he suspected he knew what it was. He couldn’t make out the words but laughter carried. It was strange how in just one week the sound had become so foreign to him.

His loss was an ache in his chest that had once held only shrapnel and tech. Just like the arc reactor, its removal seemed impossible.

But Helen Cho had been a miracle worker.

And so, apparently, was Steve Rogers.

Steve’s footsteps were slower than Tony remembered, and not quite as heavy, but Tony still recognized them as the man in question sat beside him on the bench.

“Didn’t think you were coming back,” Tony said, still staring out at the water.

“I pushed back the coordinates by five minutes so I wouldn’t spoil your entrance.”

Tony snapped to attention at the sound of Steve’s voice, wizened and rough. The man had aged so much he was almost a caricature, but there was a spark in his eye that was unfamiliar.

“Um. Wow.” Tony had encouraged Steve to go back to the past and hoped he would do it, but there was something quite different between grasping that concept intellectually and seeing Steve so far along in years.

“It’s been a little longer than a minute.”

“I’ll say.” Tony couldn’t stop staring. His friend looked older than dirt, but his posture was relaxed, his face serene. A gold band gleamed on his ring finger. “I’m assuming from that bling that you got the girl.”

“I think it’s more accurate to say that she got me.” Steve stared over the lake, lost in memories like Tony had been.

Staring out at the water was definitely a _Captain America_ kind of pastime. Old fashioned and wholesome and utterly boring. It was like no one had ADHD in that whole generation.

Yet Tony missed his lake and his quiet life more than he’d missed his suits when he finally gave them up.

“So Aunt Peggy finally got that dance she was waiting for, huh?”

Steve chuckled. “Actually I never made it back to the 40’s.”

“Don’t tell me you took up with some other broad because that’s terribly anti-climactic.”

Steve’s laugh was strange in two regards – because he sounded so old now, but also because Steve never laughed like he actually meant it. “I ran into Peggy when I was returning the last stone. I was hiding in her office, trying to decide if I could really go back, and she caught me.”

Tony thought back to the first time a certain strawberry blond clicked into his office on her impractical heels and took no prisoners. “That was that, huh?”

“It was.” Tony had never heard Steve sound so fond. A surge of pride went through him to think that he had pushed Steve towards this, followed by a surge of pride at himself for the way there was no chaser or bitterness.

“Must have been weird, watching history unfold for the second – or third time.”

“I didn’t.” Steve chuckled, a strange bark of joy. “New timeline, right? Nothing to break. I was done sitting on the sidelines.” His right hand found the band on his left, spinning it once. “I told Peggy everything. First thing we did was rescue Bucky and root Hydra out of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Huh.” That would cause change so catastrophic – or miraculous – that Tony couldn’t even imagine the end result. But he could hardly judge, the way he’d crossed timelines and changed both of them irrevocably. “Well that’s a twist.”

“There were consequences I didn’t foresee. People we lost, and people we never met. But I slept well every night, knowing I was doing my part to make a better future.”

Tony tried to picture a world where Captain America rose from the ice decades earlier, in a still simpler world. But the ripples started so early he couldn’t trace them.

“The Winter Soldier program was already disbanded, but we made sure your parents were protected that night.” Tony jerked, his gaze finding Steve’s. There was something proud in those rheumy eyes, a strength that age couldn’t steal. “And I kept reminding Howard that he needed to spend more time at home. Also, did you know your mother wanted to name you Almanzo?”

“I did know that, actually. Told Dad it was a terrible idea. But neither of us can take credit for derailing that train wreck or in the original timeline my name would be Almanzo.” The smart ass remark was automatic. It took a little bit longer to process what Steve was actually saying.

A world where his parents never died when he was 21, and one where the eventual truth of why didn’t tear him apart. A world where he didn’t inherit a company he didn’t want when he was too young to handle it. Where he wasn’t thrown to the media wolves and terrorist wolves and wolves in mentor’s clothing.

Maybe a world where he knew his father loved him long before it was too late.

“Did we get along?” Tony asked past the lump in his throat. “Me and Dad.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes you definitely didn’t. But you were in a good place at the end, I think.”

“And Mom?”

“Held the Starks together through thick and thin. She just passed a few years ago. She was a delight.”

Tony felt the tears sting behind his eyes as he blew out a stuttered breath. She hadn’t been enough  to make up for his Dad’s aloof disapproval, but he hadn’t realized just how fiercely he loved her until she’d been gone. “She was.”

He wanted to linger on the possibilities of that, but his train of thought kept barreling towards the next station and he wasn’t quite sure how to articulate it. Words were normally his tools but he’d seemed to have forgotten to put a few back. “If Dad was alive and running SI then did I ever—” Just the thought of his origin story brought back waves of pain and fear he’d tried to board up behind months of therapy. He made a hand gesture that in his mind was an upward thruster. “Afghanistan?” he finished.

“I wasn’t sure if I should change that,” Steve answered. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to. But I hadn’t paid enough attention to the details, and only Peggy and Bucky knew I was from the future. By the time I knew you were on that trip it was too late to stop you.”

He wasn’t expecting how much it hurt to have the prospect of a normal life snatched away when he’d only entertained it for seconds. He thought he’d already reached his limit on loss. “Makes sense. I mean, that would be a pretty big butterfly to stomp on. I did make myself pretty influential and if it hadn’t started there—"

“We went right to work on getting you out. I wasn’t going to let you stay in that hell, whether the world needed Iron Man or not. I knew as soon as you disappeared that was the right call. It just took some time.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-one days.”

Steve sounded ashamed, but a laugh bubbled up from Tony, raw and unfettered. Three weeks in hell instead of three months, and the whole time he probably expected someone was coming. He couldn’t imagine the difference that would have made. “No Iron Man then.” And maybe that was fine, because Steve seemed okay with what had happened and any sort of cataclysm would definitely have triggered his guilt complex, even after a few decades of marriage mellowed him out.

“You still built the suit. You just waited until you got home.”

“Fancy that. So I still started a public wave of superheroes?”

“Eventually. But there was no press conference revealing your identity. It was quite a scandal though, when one of the first things you did after getting rescued was start courting your father’s personal assistant.”

Tony ignored the fact the old man had used the word courting because the rest of his sentence was far too staggering. “Pepper and I still ended up together?”

Steve nodded, a smile stealing over his face as he pulled a phone from his pocket and scrolled clumsily through the camera roll before handing it to Tony. “You got married two years after you got back.”

Tony almost dropped the phone at the sight before him – a stodgy Stark family portrait like all the ones in the foyer growing up, except he wasn’t a brooding teenager like in the last one that ever hung there. He was fully grown, one hand resting on his mother’s shoulder where she was seated before him, beautiful with her steel grey hair and the only unforced smile of the bunch. His other arm was around Pepper, who was clearly trying to be a good sport about the whole thing, but she looked dressed for a business meeting, not time with her family. It was the three rugrats staggered in front of them – two boys and a girl – that commanded his attention. Their oldest son looked to be about eight, his brother a few years younger, and they looked like Tony in a way he found both fascinating and unnerving. Their sister, younger still, had Pepper’s strawberry hair. Tony touched the unfamiliar color, ran his finger down the incorrect curve of her jawline, loss lingering under the amazement.

“We had three kids?”

“Happy ones at that, though you wouldn’t know it from that picture. You made such a fuss, but your mother insisted on hanging it in the Manor. You took much better photos down by the lake. I could show you.”

Part of him wanted to see, but there was no sense going down that rabbit hole. It was enough to know they’d existed. “Just the one is enough.” With one last lingering glance Tony passed the phone back.

“I lost Peggy a few years ago, but I wanted to stay long enough to make sure Thanos was neutralized. You guys made the announcement a few days ago. Pepper’s expecting again.” Tony tried to do the math, comprehend what Steve was saying, but the man was already barreling on. “I think Morgan will like having older siblings to boss around.”

It was like she’d been restored twice in one day, and Tony couldn’t fathom the unlikelihood of that. “What are the odds of that? Pep and I still ending up together – Morgan – when our whole history was rewritten.”

“Greater than you think.” Steve chuckled, and Tony edged off the bench, his fingers clenched around the seat. “Time’s like that, apparently. The Ancient One told me that there are some events that are just likely to happen. No matter the circumstances, the universe pushes itself towards them. Stopping them is harder than letting them occur.”

“You saying me and Pepper getting together was inevitable?”

Tony wasn’t sure why the idea made Steve flinch, but the man rallied quickly. “Maybe so. But some things do need a little intervention. Which is why I encouraged you to start an internship program and emailed the requirements to a certain kid from Queens.”

The shocks just kept coming, and Tony wasn’t sure how many more he could take. “Peter. How is he?”

“Not sure. You don’t know him much yet. But I think you will.”

It was staggering to think of Steve as some puppet master, a star-spangled guardian angel, orchestrating his life into something better, and yet ostensibly the same. And yet a Steve who married his “aunt” in 1970 was not a man who could fight beside him almost forty years later, not when it was clear that aging had hit with a vengeance. Tony had lost his team so many times and he’d told himself it didn’t hurt any longer, but that had always been a lie. He’d never regained the closeness of those first crazy months, and he missed it even now. “So we never fought together?”

“We definitely fought. Political debates at the dinner table. Dodgers versus Mets. Epic Risk tournaments where Peggy and Pepper always destroyed us. But no, we never fought together in our suits.”

Steve put the phone back in his pocket and looked off towards the lake. “There’s always a cost. But it was worth it, I think. We were still close – closer maybe. Just a different kind of closeness.”

Tony skirted around that, the honesty too much when everything was so raw. “And Thanos?”

“Taken care of before he ever got the stones. We got Danvers on the hunt back in the 90’s. And knowing what the stones could do, we were a little more protective this time around.”

And he was glad, that the kids he’d never know wouldn’t have to live through the Decimation. That his hubris hadn’t damned half of existence. “Well look at you. Saving the world all by your lonesome.”

“No, Tony. It was still a team effort.” Steve turned back, and even though his age was startling Tony could still see that Captain American jawline, and those piercing blue eyes that had captivated generations. “I judged you, more than once, and I shouldn’t have. I didn’t understand, when we first met, what Howard became, and how that affected you. But you’re a good man, Tony, no matter the circumstances you’re faced with. I know because I’ve seen it.”

Tony couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat, and everything witty flew out of his mind. There was so much he should say, starting with something along the lines of “Thank you” and “You too” but all he could manage was a watery exhale that was terribly close to a sob.

“Now what are you doing here talking to your Uncle Steve when your family is waiting?”

That answer was easy. “Panicking. Clearly. Thought I could have a private little anxiety attack and then Methuselah joined me.”

“What are you worried about?”

“I’m not the man they lost. The one they loved. They don’t have to want me, just because I want them.”

“But they will.”

“You don’t know that. I’ve been gone for over a week, right? Maybe they’ve already started to get over it.”

“You don’t get over that sort of loss in a week, Tony. Trust me. There’s some loss you don’t ever fully get over.” Steve worried at his wedding band, spinning the gold beneath his fingers, and Tony wasn’t even sure he was aware he was doing it. “Luckily Pepper and Morgan don’t have to. Because you’re still here. So go and get them.”

There had always been something reassuring in Steve’s steady confidence. Tony had often wondered if that was a byproduct of the serum. A voice made for propaganda would be right up the Strategic Scientific Reserve’s ally.

Tony looked out at the lake one last time, trying to draw from its tranquility. The sun was setting fast, leaving the sky awash in beautiful colors which reflected off the water. He took a long, steadying breath, and pulled himself to his feet.

No more living in this twilight world. His family needed him.

“Have I thanked you for all this, by the way?”

Steve smirked as he rose. “More than once.”

“And I’ll want a copy of that photo.”

“I’ll email it to you.”

“Please don’t,” Tony groaned.

Steve tilted his head toward the road. “I think you’ve kept Bruce waiting long enough.”

There was a massive pickup parked beside the time machine. “You know when I said I needed someone to drive me I really didn’t expect Professor Hulk to be the one to volunteer. Is that thing even street legal?”

“I’d like to see the police officer brave enough to try to tell him otherwise.”

“Naughty, Captain.”

“I have my moments.”

Then Steve was pushing him towards his ride, and Tony didn’t protest.

* * *

It turned out that Bruce had volunteered to drive Tony largely because he wanted to pick his brain about alternate timelines, but Tony didn’t mind. The science steadied him, and it was easier to crack jokes and deflect when he was in his element. This Bruce didn’t know about his meltdown so he could gloss over all those bits. The conversation was a welcome distraction from worrying about Pepper’s reaction.

His surroundings were starting to get real familiar when Bruce asked, “So in your timeline Nat’s alive, huh?” It was hard to believe something so tentative could come out of something so large. His size and coloring gave Tony pause, because the Hulk had been angry and unpredictable without provocation, and he really didn’t want to be trapped in a tin can with even half a Hulk if he went postal. But Bruce’s current form seemed stable, and he debated scientific concepts with nearly as much nuance as his human form once had. The Hulk had barely been able to form words.

And Tony had always been one to take risks.

He reached into Steve’s satchel – _a satchel, how_ ancient _was that man_ – and pulled out the photo of Nat and the Bartons.

Bruce reached out with fingers that dwarfed the frame, one hand still on the wheel, and Tony was glad there wasn’t much traffic on the back road they were driving down.

“Her hair is red,” he said with a softness that was almost human.

That seemed a silly thing to focus on, but who was he to judge. “For right now, I suppose. She changes it up a bunch.”

Bruce stared at it for a few long moments, the road completely forgotten, but by the time Tony was ready to comment on that he handed the photo back.

“Did Steve mention what changed that she’s still alive? Did someone different go to Vormir? Or did Clint not come back?”

“That all went down the same, I think. We lost her to the Soul Stone.”

“Then how is she alive now? Is there something we missed? Something we can do?”

Tony was a firm believer of getting the truth out in the open, but he wasn’t sure if this truth would hurt more than it helped. Tony couldn’t imagine choosing _this_ , but Bruce seemingly had, and maybe he’d gotten over Natasha here; maybe he’d never loved her at all. The knowledge that he’d missed his shot at both saving his girl and living a normal life with her could be devastating, and he didn’t wish that pain on anyone, especially Bruce, his first friend among the Avengers.

If the Hulk was still prone to violent outbursts he really didn’t want to be this up close and personal when he delivered bad news.

But if he’d saved Pepper in another world, even if it meant he didn’t get to be with her himself, he’d want to know that.

So Tony retrieved the second photo and handed it over. “It was you.”

When Bruce rubbed his thumb down the picture it eclipsed both their faces. Tony held his breath and waited for the glass to shatter under his grasp.

“Me?” Bruce asked, gruff. “How was it me?”

“When you snapped you didn’t bring everyone who was dusted to the present, you rewound time to before the Snap. You broke your promise to me, which killed Pepper before Morgan was even born, but it also saved my life when Nat got the stones to Danvers, which allowed me to come to this timeline and make it up to my family here, so I’m simultaneously pissed and grateful to your alternate self now. It’s a headache.”

“Why would I do that?”

“The same reason I would have. You had to save your wife. Whatever the cost.”

Still the glass didn’t crack. “We got married.”

“Yep. Sometime after the Snap. It was a beautiful ceremony, or so I heard. I wasn’t invited. I’ve tried not to take offense to that. It was some spur of the moment, we’re at the top of this mountain so why the hell not kind of thing.”

Bruce’s hand didn’t get any greener, and his neck didn’t get any thicker. But Tony wasn’t sure what Bruce had sacrificed for that control.

“She was happy? With me?”

Tony didn’t like how surprised Bruce seemed by that. “Woman like that wouldn’t have stuck around if she wasn’t.”

“That’s hard to believe. Nat and I – we talked about it but we never – we missed our window.”

“Steve tried to get Nat back from the Soul Stone. But the Guardian said she was already gone. So he waited around New York for ten years just to make sure she’d get rescued. It was only happenstance he discovered he could help me. All that time he was waiting for her.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure that’s really how—”

“I know. But you can’t expect a jarhead to understand the nuances of Quantum Physics. Though I’m damn grateful he tried.”

“Pepper’s a tough woman, but it’s clear that she misses you. They both do.”

“I’m not nearly as strong,” Tony admitted. “Losing them was agony.” But that pain felt distant now, still there under the surface but separate, as if he were protected by a suit of armor. A suit Rogers had built. So ironic. “But here I am, with time to make up for that.”

“I’m glad, Tony. I really am.”

He sounded it, reminding Tony that maybe he should have been kinder to his friends when they’d come to try to pull him from his self-destruction. He’d gotten so used to being the Starks against the world. He’d forgotten what it was like to let others in.

“Are you happy?” he asked. “With this life you’ve chosen? Big Guy on the outside, Little Guy up here?” Tony tapped his head and watched closely for tells. It was a miracle to expect that the Hulk could hide anything.

Bruce nodded and handed Tony back the picture. “For the first time in almost two decades I’m not at war with myself. I’m not terrified of losing control and hurting someone. I’m not sure that’s happiness, but I’m at peace.”

“You deserve that, Buddy.”

“I wish I could have saved her. Even if we never—” Bruce shook his head. “This is like some impossible dream.”

“She’d want us to remember the world where she’s still out there. Deliriously happy. It’s freaky, let me tell you. How pretty she is when she actually smiles. I think she threw her ledger out years ago. And that’s something no one else could get her to do. Not even Clint. You should keep that picture.”

“It’s for Clint, isn’t it?”                                       

“You could make a copy.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Both of them? She always loved those kids.”

“Sure. I just need them back. Though technically Steve was supposed to deliver them, and now that he’s here he can be the one to fly to the middle of nowhere.”

Shortly afterwards Bruce pulled up to the lakehouse. Joy and dread sparred within him, so Tony tore his gaze away to look at his big green friend. That word hadn’t applied between them in quite a while, but he wanted it to again. “I’ll need a couple days to get settled,” he said, hoping it was true. “But then you should come by for dinner. I can show you around.”

“I’d like that,” Bruce said. “Welcome home, Tony.”

* * *

He legs shook as he exited the car, and he watched it go until even the taillights winked out in the darkness. He could feel his heart pounding, his lungs struggling to keep up and flood his body with enough oxygen. Everything that could save or destroy him was behind that front door. As much as it hurt not to know, the possible rejection he could face there would be even more damning.

What would he do if she wanted nothing to do with him?

The truth was he couldn’t know until he found out, so he forced himself to walk forward. There wasn’t much moonlight tonight, and though the stars were out they weren’t bright enough to make it worthwhile to stare out at the lake for a while. So he mustered some resolve and made his way to the front porch, coming close enough to the door to trigger F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s sensor.

“Hey F.R.I.D.A.Y. Do you think you could be a dear and let me in without a fuss? I seem to have lost my key.”

He was greeted by silence, and Tony spent a few tense seconds wondering if Pepper had disabled his AI before she answered, “I do not understand, Boss. I was monitoring your vital signs when they came to a halt eight days ago. You’ve been declared dead by all government agencies and the media.”

He’d done a damn good job, because she almost sounded sad about that. “It’s kind of a long story. I’ve been left for dead before. It didn’t stick this time either.”

“I still do not understand.”

“Run biometrics. That should prove it’s me.” There was something foolish in him that feared it wouldn’t, but that was absurd, because whatever happened differently in twelve years wouldn’t change his fingerprints. He let F.R.I.D.A.Y. scan his eye and fingertips, and waited for her to conclude, “Biometrics are a match.”

The door clicked softly open. “I still do not understand. But I’m glad you’re home, Boss.”

“It’s good to be home, Fri. You have no idea.”

“You are right. As an AI I have no home.”

“Yeah you do,” he argued, feeling strangely sentimental. He’d been so mad at F.R.I.D.A.Y., but here she had never betrayed him. Had even mourned him, in some incomprehensible impossible way.

Tony stepped into the house. Even though his heart still jack-hammered in his chest every familiar inch was a balm. He’d built this place with his own hands, desperate for a project to distract him from his crushing defeat and the certainty that he would be an awful father. He’d called in outside contractors only when absolutely necessary, bowing to Pepper’s insistence that she wasn’t going to raise a newborn in a hotel suite, and their new home had to be finished by the time Morgan arrived. It had been a labor of love, to build his precious family a sanctuary as he reforged himself into the man he wanted to be for them. The mechanic – who tinkered and taught and didn’t martyr himself on a battlefield – or give up and nearly drink himself to death.

He just wanted to be that man again. But that man was nothing without the ones he loved.

He moved through the house like a ghost, searching for differences like in those Highlights cartoons of his youth, finding nothing. Even the picture on the fridge was the same one Morgan had drawn on the morning he left – a figure in a mask, pink hair flowing out of the helmet. “Mommy,” she’d declared. “Wearing something you gave her.” And _damn_ , that had to sting, all things considered, and _damn_ must she have been hot on the battlefield, like an avenging angel in the armor he had made for her.

He’d surely never see her in it now, but that was a small price to pay.

He found her in the den, legs tucked beneath her on the couch, clutching a glass of red wine. There was a book in her lap but she looked vacantly out the darkened window.

He wanted to say something clever, another quip about _one last surprise_ or _honey, I’m home_ or _something_ but all the words stuck in his throat when he saw her. She was barely moving, but her thumb reached up to trace the condensation on the wineglass, proving that she was undoubtably alive. The only syllable that made it past his useless windpipe was a strangled, “Pep.”

Her whole body jerked towards him and she dropped the glass, which shattered against the hardwood floor – the floor they’d christened once, giddy with exhaustion and relief on the first night Morgan hadn’t woken up screaming a few hours after she’d been put down – and

_Focus._

“Tony.” Her voice sounded just as strangled as his but it was heavenly, and Tony wanted her more desperately than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

“Hey,” he croaked, barely a response but all he could manage.

Pepper didn’t stand. She pressed one hand flat against her heart and wrapped the other around her side, clutching at her hip as if she was trying to hold herself together. “I swear to god, if you installed yourself as a hologram in this house I will probably appreciate that someday but it’s too soon. Too soon, Tony.”

He snorted and took a few careful steps forward, trying not to spook her. Her scolding relaxed something in his chest, made the moment more familiar. “Do I really look pale enough to be a hologram?” he quipped, reaching up to make sure his hair was all in place, even though he was probably pale judging by how shaky he felt.

“Would you ever create a hologram that wasn’t indistinguishable from reality?”

He barked out a chuckle to hear his own arrogance falling from Pepper’s mouth. As always she wasn’t wrong. But she was gnawing at her quivering lip, and Tony could see her hand tremble against her side, and that simply wouldn’t do.

He crossed the rest of the distance between them and carefully pried her fingers from her hip as he sat beside her. They were cool – not ice cold, _dead for hours cold -_ but colder than they ought to be, so he raised her hand to his mouth and brushed a kiss against her knuckles – _the skin unbroken, no splinters or tears –_ before engulfing it with both his own and trying to rub some warmth into it. “I don’t think even I could build a hologram that can do this.”

She heaved a breath that shuddered through her, and Tony could see the beginning of tears in her eyes. Her fingers flexed and he complied with the wordless request, weaving his fingers together with hers, letting her grip him so tightly he could feel it down to his bones. “I asked Nick. I _begged_ him to tell me if there was any way. Magic or science or even alien technology. And he just shook his head, and he gave me the saddest look.”

“Probably struck a nerve. Fury’s got some history with alien resurrection drugs. But he had nothing to do with this. It was Cap.”

Pepper’s brow furrowed. “Steve was just here two days ago, and he didn’t say anything.”

“Wasn’t really a plan. More of a spur of the moment discovery.” Tony took a deep breath, willing himself to press onward even though it might cut this tentative thread tethering him to a life worth continuing. “And this wasn’t a resurrection. More like a relocation.”

That didn’t mean anything to Pepper, of course it didn’t. She tilted her head and tried to pull away, but Tony refused to let her go. “What?”

There was nothing for it but the truth. He couldn’t lie to her about this. That wouldn’t be fair to either of those who were lost. “He’s still gone, your Tony. Cap found me when he went back to return the Infinity Stones. You can’t change the past, but you can split off a new timeline. We tried to be careful but you know us. Tried was the operative word. The world he returned the stone to wasn’t the one he left.”

He watched her try to reason it out. Pepper was no slouch, but her mind operated on a different wavelength than his. The only science she’d taken in college had been political. “Steve brought you here from some alternate universe that the Avengers created?”

The semantics would be lost on her, so he shrugged. “Basically.”

She pulled her hand away, and that was worse than a sword to his gut, which he could say from experience.

“How could you leave us?” There was steel in Pepper’s tone. “The Pepper and Morgan of your world?”

He could see it when he closed his eyes. Those awful forty-seven minutes on an endless loop. “Because you were gone,” he choked as his stomach churned. “You were dead and Morgan was never born. There was nothing left for me there. Then Steve showed up and said you were alone here. How could I not come?”

“Oh.” It was breathy like an exhale. He flinched when she reached out for his face, but soon he was melting into her touch as she traced his jawline and drifted down his neck. He wasn’t sure what she was searching for but god he hoped she found it.

“Maybe I was wrong,” he said when her silence became too much. “But I had to find out. I’m useless without you, Pepper.”

He watched her blink tears out of her eyes. Then her hand was climbing up to tug at the hair at the back of his neck to pull him forward and suddenly she was kissing him with a reckless abandon.

He let himself drown in the sensation, but when they broke apart to breathe he knew he had to do this right. “In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not the man you lost. Not exactly. I was, up until a point.”

There was such a delightful flush in Pepper’s cheeks when she asked, “When was that?”

“2012.”

“You’ll have to explain this to me again later. Probably multiple times. But I don’t think I care.”

Finally he could smile, though he wasn’t sure that he looked properly roguish. “Great. Cause I don’t either.” Then they were kissing again, slow and thorough, like a binding agent knitting over wounds that might have been mortal. Once they were finished he threw his arms around her and held her to him tightly, burying in face in her hair. “God, how I’ve missed you.”

She clutched him just a little tighter. “I know the feeling.”

They’d had more than a few near-death reunions, but there had never been so little hope, and so much time to grieve. Tony could hardly think through all the emotions coursing through him, the relief euphoric like a drug.

“Wait a sec,” she said after some time had passed, her breath puffing against his neck. “You said in your world Morgan was never born. You do remember that we have a four year old daughter, right?”

He wasn’t sure why the thought of that made him laugh when it wasn’t funny at all, but he pictured the mess that would be and couldn’t stop himself.

Pepper pried herself back from his arms. “Tony, answer me. This is important. Because if you don’t we need to come up with a plan, because she won’t understand.”

Her hair was plastered to her cheekbone from how she’d cried and pressed herself against him. He worked his way under the strands, gently pulling them free and separating them between his fingers.  “Of course I remember Morgan. How could I ever forget our little menace?”

“But you said…”

He hoped this was the last time he’d have to tell this story, but he doubted it. At least in his world everyone had known. “In my time Bruce went back five years instead of bringing everyone to the present. You got caught in the crossfire so – no Morgan. But I still remember those years.”

“Tony.” It wasn’t pity in her voice, it was empathy, and that made all the difference. He couldn’t tell her it was okay because it wasn’t, but he was definitely starting to believe that it would be.

“I need to see her.”

“I just got her to bed. She hasn’t been sleeping.”

He recognized the automaticness of her response, but he still looked at her skeptically. “I won’t wake her. I just need to see that she’s okay. That she … exists.”

Pepper nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry. Force of habit.”

“You know I love it when you go all Mama Bear.” He pushed her hair behind her ear and then pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “How’s she doing?”

“She’ll be better in the morning.” Tony pulled away enough for Pepper to rise on her toes and press her head against his. There was still moisture sparkling in her eyes, but he knew he’d been crying too. “She missed you so much. But she’ll be all right now.”

Pepper stepped back and held out a hand. Tony took it and let her lead him to Morgan’s room. It was all the same – even the toys scattered on every surface were the ones Tony recognized – Morgan was just as messy as her father, much to Pepper’s consternation.  

When he hesitated at the doorway Pepper’s hand trailed up to his shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s okay now. She’s right inside.”

Pepper _got_ him, and that’s how he had survived for so long, because somehow this remarkable woman could wade through the chaos in his head far more effectively than he could. She gave him the strength to push past all the nerves and open the door.

And there she was, his miracle princess, curled up in a tight ball and clutching the Iron Man plush she adored. Rhodey had bought it ages ago, in the first wave of merchandising a few months after his Iron Man press conference, teasing him about needing it for an Iron Baby someday. Tony had told his friend he was full of shit, because what kind of universe would let a mess like him be a father. Rhodey had brought it to the hospital the day Morgan was born, practically crowing.

Tony was secretly glad that Uncle Rhodey had planned so far ahead. There were no Iron Man toys as Morgan grew up. Not since the Avengers failed, and the broken world realized it was on its own.

He supposed he could fill this whole cabin with Iron Man stuff now, if he wanted to.

He sat down gingerly beside her, grateful for the glow of her unicorn nightlight. She was just as he remembered her, and it seemed impossible that he’d begun to forget. It felt like his heart was in a vice but even as it beat against its constraints the feeling was glorious, because she was right here beside him, his greatest creation, safe and sound. He reached out with trembling fingers to push her hair back, not wanting to wake her but needing to feel for himself that she was solid and real.

She shifted just slightly under his touch, clutching her toy even tighter. She was clearly tense even in sleep, and Tony knew it was his fault, but he’d come up with a dozen ways to make it up to her.

“Hey there, Little Miss,” he whispered. “Does Daddy have a surprise for you tomorrow.”

There was so much he wanted to say to her, but it would be better when she was awake. He’d have to keep saying it as she got older so she would remember. That was a lesson his father had never learned, and Tony had resolved on the day Pepper told him she was pregnant that he would not become Howard Stark.

He knew that he should stand up, leave her to her rest, get some sleep himself, but he just couldn’t tear himself away. He watched her chest rise and fall and imagined all the potential that had been snatched away falling back into place. He was vaguely aware of Pepper sitting beside him, her chin on his shoulder, an arm around his back.

“She’s going to be so happy,” Pepper whispered into his neck. Tony didn’t know how much time had passed. “She adores you so much. You’re such a good father.”

Pepper’s affirmation sparked a fire that Tony had thought forever extinguished. He turned his head to capture her lips. This was different from their other kisses, more intentional, and Tony knew with a growing delight where this was going to go.

It took great restraint to pull himself away. “This is not how I want her to find out that I’m back,” he panted, which pulled a giggle from Pepper which he considered a great personal victory. He was always trying to get her to lighten up. “So we best take this elsewhere, Mrs. Stark.”

He’d been scared of taking that step for a long time, but just like fatherhood marriage turned out to be some crazy gift. There were very few things better than knowing that this remarkable woman had vowed to put up with him forever.

“Great idea, Mr. Stark.”

And then they were stumbling through the hallway shedding clothes like teenagers. But when Tony tugged at the hem of her shirt he hesitated, no longer able to ignore the curiosity of what she was wearing. It was his shirt, technically, or it had been, a black tee from that first round of merchandise that proclaimed _I_ picture of an arc reactor _Iron Man_. He’d found that endlessly amusing, but Pepper had not. She’d tried to convince him to throw it away at least half a dozen times, from the very start of their relationship.

It would be simple enough to say nothing. He could peel the shirt off her and make love to his wife. Enjoy one perfect night before the world came crashing in. It wouldn’t always be this easy, he knew that. This felt like a test, and while he sometimes blew those on purpose this one he wanted to pass. This was the first of what could be hundreds of little differences and they had to establish how to deal with those so they didn’t tear them apart.

If that meant no sex tonight he could live with that. As long as she didn’t turn him away for good.

She noticed his hesitation and reached out to touch his face. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

He ran his fingers up her stomach to soften the blow. “You hated this shirt,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

She froze, but only for a second. Then she shook her head. There was something soft in her smile, the lust losing its edge. “I don’t hate this shirt. I don’t think she did either.”

“You were always trying to get me to throw it away.”

Pepper nodded. “Umm hmmm.” Her hand trailed up his bare chest and spread across the scar tissue where his arc reactor used to be. “Not a difference.”

He watched her closely, unsure of what was going on. “Then why?”

She ducked her head down, hiding behind a curtain of hair. “If you threw it away you wouldn’t notice that I took it,” she mumbled.

He swiped the hair away and felt the warmth across her cheeks. “Are you blushing, Potts?” he crowed.

“No,” she spat, though honestly won out quickly. “Maybe. Just shut up, you idiot. It reminds me of you, and I wanted to be able to wear it when we were apart.”

Something swelled inside him. “Wow, Potts. That’s the most girly thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Stop it,” she commanded, burying her face in his shoulder. “You didn’t know you were married to a walking cliché, did you?”

He turned her face so she had to look at him. “I love it,” he told her honestly, the thought of being wanted so much thrumming through him like an earthquake. “So hot. What a great cliché. You can have all my clothes if you want them. They look better on you anyway. Not sure how yours will look on me but I bet I can make them work.”

“Stop,” she repeated, lightly punching him on the shoulder, but her kiss told him otherwise. “Now you better take this shirt off me right now or you’ll never see it again.”

He was glad enough to comply. “Yes ma’am.” Afterwards he looked her up and down, settling on her sapphire eyes. “God, I love you Pep.”

She smiled, and all the pain and hesitation of the past hour melted away. “I know, Tony. The feeling’s very much mutual.” She leaned forward to press herself against him, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Now why don’t you show me.”

* * *

Later – much later – they lay skin to skin, his hand trailing absentmindedly up and down her side. “This is not how I thought this day would end,” she mused from the halo of mussed hair spayed across his chest.

“I had hoped,” he admitted, sated and satisfied and still slightly tentative.

“How long have you known we were here?” she asked, pushing herself up just enough that she could look at him.

“About two days,” he answered. “I had to re-calibrate a second bracelet so I could come here and Cap could deliver the last stone.” He hesitated, but only a second. Total honesty, that was the only way they could make this work. “And I had to sober up.”

“Tony.”

He didn’t let himself analyze her tone; he just plowed forward with his explanation. Who knew how bad his drinking had been here – whether adventures with Loki had made it better or worse. “I know, I know. Terrible idea. I have no excuse. But I’m useless without you, you know that, and honestly once I found out there wasn’t a way to bring you back I didn’t have any options besides drink myself to death. But I know I can’t drink around Morgan, and I won’t. I’ve never wanted a drink less in my entire life, but if I can’t control it I’ll go to rehab, I promise.”

“Hey.” Pepper’s fingers trailed across his jaw and came to rest in front of his lips. “I believe you. I know you wouldn’t drink around Morgan. I just hate to think of you that upset.”

Her acceptance cradled him, took off some of the edge of that awful week. “It was bad. But it’s behind me now.”

She nodded, settling back down against him. “Can you explain this to me now? From the beginning? The time traveling for dummies version?”

He told her everything. She asked all the right questions, and caught on to the time travel rules pretty quickly, though she reminded him to “explain it as if I was Steve” more than once. She grew quieter as the story went on, and afterwards she pressed her ear against his chest, her thumb finding the pulse at his wrist.

“I promised you we’d be okay,” she said after a few minutes of shaky silence. “I wanted you to be at peace, so I tried to mean that. I was strong for Morgan but it hurt so much. Even though I knew when you went away that this was probably what Stephen meant. Losing you had felt almost inevitable since I saw you in that suit for the very first time. Yet it still tore me apart. And now here you are, right beside me, and I believe it but when I close my eyes I still see you on that battlefield. I can smell the ash and your eyes are so empty and your body’s so burned and—” she choked off, turning into him, and he ran a hand down her back. “I guess I do care just a little.”

She said it as if it were some shameful thing, but he understood. “That’s all right. There’s forty-seven minutes I really wish I could unwatch. I care too.”

He would never forget the wife and daughter he lost – he couldn’t – but there was nothing more amazing than the one he held in his arms, and the one safe and sound in the room down the hall. He knew there was no quick way to diffuse all the pain they’d endured, but he’d lance it away, bit by bit. And he knew her, knew that the fastest way to calm her down was to impose some order on her chaotic life, so he kissed her on the forehead, and he found that spot that always made her squirm, and then he shifted enough so he could look her in the eye.

“So here’s the plan, Potts.” That got her attention. Even though all he really wanted to do was kiss every freckle on her lovely face he stayed focused. “First off, we get two of the best therapists money can buy, and we confuse the hell out of them.” That pulled a smile from her lips and he couldn’t help but kiss them, briefly, but he stayed real close. “Next we vow to always be open with one another, because it’s silly to be jealous of ourselves, and the two of us are the only ones who really get this crazy scenario we’ve fallen into. Capiche?”

“Capiche,” she said with a nod and a roll of her eyes. He could see the resolve building there, the hysteria falling away.

“And finally, we make the most out of every moment we’ve been given and we just love the hell out of one another, because I wrote the book on time travel and this is really scientifically improbable. I never thought that I deserved a miracle but this is something, Pep. And I’m not going to let it go to waste.”

“Me either,” Pepper resolved, and with two words Tony knew he was home. Her expression tightened into a smirk. “Who knew you were so good at plans, Mr. Stark.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m great at plans,” he countered, his hand skittering up her torso. She tried valiantly not to twitch away, and mostly failed. “I just usually make them up as I go along. Save the world. Make the suit better.” With a well-practiced motion he flipped them around till he was looking down at her. “Make love to my wife.”

“Hmm. Like that one,” she said with a silly grin, tugging him down.

But his plan was interrupted by a chime and F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice telling them that, “Little Miss is in distress.”

Tony rolled off Pepper with enough presence of mind to find his pajamas, which were still in the same drawer that Pepper always put them after he left them on the floor. Then he was heading down the hall at a walk so brisk it was nearly a run, Pepper right on his heels.

“Fri, give me a soft light,” he directed as he opened the door. The darkness receded enough for him to see Morgan still curled up in the center of her bed, but her body shook with quiet sobs that tore right through Tony. He dropped down beside her, desperate to pull her into his arms but not wanting to startle her. “Hey, Morguna. What’s got you so upset, Little Miss?”

Morgan’s eyes snapped open and locked onto his, and Tony was caught in that gaze, so watery and young. “Daddy?” she whispered after a few moments of silence, as if she wasn’t sure whether to hope, and Tony swallowed back the very big lump in his throat.

“That’s me.”

Morgan sat up but didn’t come any closer, and Tony made himself wait as she clutched her Iron Man plush even tighter to her chest. “Everyone’s sad now that you’re gone,” she said in her matter of fact way, an old soul already. “But they’re trying to hide it. F.R.I.D.A.Y. wasn’t supposed to see.”

“Oh baby,” he whispered. Unable to stay apart from her any longer, he reached out to brush her tears away with the sleeve of his robe.

She did not dissolve under his touch.

Morgan frowned and reached out, her whole hand closing around just one of his fingers the way she had moments after she was born, staking her claim to his heart forever. “Mommy said you couldn’t come back. Not ever. You saved everyone but you had to go away. You didn’t want to, but you had to. Mommy said.”

For a moment Tony let his gaze drift to Pepper, standing in the doorway watching with watery eyes. What strength she must have had, to explain this to Morgan again and again and remain standing. He offered her the best smile he could manage, and then turned back to their little girl. “Your Mommy’s right – oh, about _eighty-eight_ percent of the time,” he said, flashing Pepper a quick smirk. “But in that twelve to fifteen percent I occasionally sneak one by her.”

Morgan’s frown morphed into something more focused, and she squeezed his finger a little tighter. “Is everyone still saved?”

Bless the heart on that child. “Yeah, baby. Everyone’s still saved.”

She tilted her head. “Then will you stay? Please.”

“Forever and ever,” he promised. Then she was climbing into his lap and he lifted her the rest of the way, till she was clutching his neck and he rocked her back and forth, deliriously happy and wrecked all at once.

“I missed you Daddy. Tons and tons.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart. God, how I missed you.” He held her until his tears stopped falling and he felt her grip on him loosen, her whole body shaking with a tiny yawn.

“I think it’s time for little warrior princesses to go back to bed,” he said, pulling back to bop her on the nose.

She reached out and brushed away the last of his tears with her fingers. “Only if you stay.”

“Think I can manage that,” he said as he relinquished his hold on her. “But I have a counter condition. Mommy gets to stay too. I don’t want to let either of my girls out of my sight.”

“But you have to close your eyes to go to sleep,” she argued.

Not yet five, and she was already no slouch. “Good point,” he conceded, impressed. “Guess I won’t be able to see you. But I’ll still be able to smell you.”

“Ewww,” Morgan squealed. Tony slipped under the covers and then pulled Morgan towards his edge of the bed.

“What? You and Mommy smell good. Now scootch over to give Mommy some room.” Morgan complied, curling into Tony’s chest. He just about melted when she pressed a kiss above his heart. Pepper climbed into the other side of the bed, and one hand reached out to close around his.

“Fri, turn off the lights.”

“You’ll be here in the morning, right?” Morgan asked as Tony smoothed back her hair.

It was nearly impossible to believe, but he nodded. “Yeah I will.” Pepper squeezed his hand in the darkness.

“Can we have cheeseburgers tomorrow?” she asked a few moments after Tony thought she’d fallen asleep.

He snorted. “Yeah, we can have cheeseburgers.”

“For breakfast?”

This time he laughed out loud. “I don’t know about that one.”

“I know about that one,” Pepper interjected. “Cheeseburgers are not a breakfast food.”

“Breakfast cheeseburgers are debatable,” Tony countered, knowing it would get a rise out of her. “We’ll see what the morning brings.”

“I know what the morning will bring,” Pepper said.

For the first time in a horrid week Tony did too.

“I love you Daddy,” Morgan mumbled into his chest. “Three thousand.”

He leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead. “Love you too kiddo. Three thousand infinity.”

Morgan hummed a wordless affirmation before finally drifting off to dreamland. Tony looked past Morgan to find Pepper’s eyes in the darkness. “Love you too,” he mouthed. “Three thousand.” That was his thing with Morgan, but he needed Pepper to know it was just as true for her as well. He’d never have this amazing family without her. Never be the father he wanted to be without her boundless patience.

“Likewise,” she mouthed, leaning over to kiss them both on the cheek in turn before settling down beside them.

For the first time in his life, Tony truly felt like a hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was the fluff worth the wait? Please let me know.  
> Coming up next … our favorite kid from Queens.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's one member of Tony's family who still doesn't know that he's home. (i.e. The One Where Tony Goes to Queens)

Tony overestimated the traffic.

The route between the lake house and Queens had become familiar, but Tony had expected twice the population would mean twice the congestion. He hadn’t accounted for the fact that it might take more than a week for the returned to get new cars, when their finances and jobs were all in shambles. He made it to the city in good time and let himself into the Parkers’ apartment with the spare key May had lent the other Tony, because sometimes he’d arrived before she got off shift and it was hard to hide from the public eye if someone noticed he was camped out by her apartment door and sold that information to a tabloid.

His May had given him the same key.                                                                                   

He arrived twenty minutes before the kid could possibly get home from school and spent the time kicking himself that he hadn’t figured out how to make sure Peter was coming straight back. He’d had Happy call the school and confirm there was no Decathlon practice today, but he hadn’t wanted to involve the man any further. Maybe it was petty, but Tony wanted his appearance to be a surprise, and he didn’t trust Happy to be subtle. Peter was a bright kid, and it wouldn’t take much for him to figure it out.

Which left Tony sitting on the threadbare couch behind the beautiful Italian coffee table he’d given May in a grandiose gesture driven by gratitude and guilt.

Guilt that he’d gotten her nephew killed. Gratitude that she’d never blamed him for it.

He’d tried and tried to buy her a new sofa until she’d rounded on him with tear-soaked eyes to tell him that she just couldn’t, because _Peter had done his homework there, and Peter had watched so many movies curled up there, and it had been Ben’s favorite couch_ – and Tony had never asked again.

Every time since that Tony had visited this apartment he’d pictured Peter on the couch. He never let himself sit there, because Peter had never come home, and Tony had been part of that failure, even if he’d chosen not to dwell in that failure because his girls needed him to be functional. Tony hadn’t deserved to sit on that couch and imagine Peter curled up by his side, wide-eyed and babbling at some movie he’d seen a dozen times, entertainment in itself.

Tony sat on it now.

He’d woken this morning to Morgan giggling in his ear that he’d overslept, and she was ready for her cheeseburgers. He’d been certain it was a dream, but it never faded. Not when she accidentally kneed him in the gut when he started to tickle her, or when Pepper woke to their shenanigans and practically leapt across the bed to kiss him. Not when Morgan ran shrieking into the kitchen to investigate the delicious smells emanating from that direction. Not even as he promised Pepper this was all for real and they took a few stolen moments to get reacquainted.

“Shouldn’t we be concerned that we just sent our daughter away when there’s clearly an intruder in the house?” Pepper asked as she tried half-heartedly to roll away from him. “This feels like a bad parenting moment.”

Tony laughed. “There’s a short list of intruders Fri would let in, and only one would make pancakes.” He pulled her back towards him and got a little fresh as he kissed her, relishing in soft skin and familiar curves. “Making out in our daughter’s bed though,” he whispered into her neck where a beautiful hickey was forming. “ _That_ might be a bad parenting moment.”

At which she promptly pushed him out of bed.

He laughed through the throbbing pain in his elbows as she peered down at him, caught between shock and amusement.

“You wound me, Potts. Literally and figuratively.”

“Are you okay?”

He cut himself off just before the flippant, “I’ll live,” passed his lips. “You could kiss it and make it better,” he said instead.

All the worry drained from her gaze as she pulled herself into a sitting position. “Have you learned nothing?”

“What? Rhodey’s here, so that means we’ve got a babysitter. Responsible parenting.”

“He’ll know what we’re doing,” she protested.

“So? Morgan won’t, and that’s all that matters.” Tony looked up at her with his best bedroom eyes. “I’ve missed you, Pep.”

Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. “You can’t keep using that, Tony.”

“Sure I can. It’s always gonna be true.” He grinned at her. “You can tell me you missed me all you want. It’s nice to be wanted.”

She hopped off the bed so fast he’d thought he’d played this wrong, but with a fluid motion she dropped into his lap and started kissing him avidly.

“Knew you’d come around,” he quipped once they broke apart.

She leaned back but he followed, until her fingers came up to separate them. “I’m not having sex with you in our daughter’s bedroom.”

He barked out a laugh. “That’s fine. We’ve got a perfectly good one down the hall.”

She paused just long enough to let him think he was winning, and then twisted out of his grasp with practiced ease. “We have a _guest_ ,” she said from the doorway, as if that word should carry more weight than her smoking hot body. “Who’s clearly come to see your back-from-the-dead ass.”

The way she said it without flinching boded well for their future. As did the way it rose no panic within him. “Language, Potts. We’re in our child’s room.”

“You can sit there and sass me. Or you can join me in getting freshened up.”

She looked delightfully ruffled. While it bothered her to be anything less than put together Tony could care less when he was in his own home. “It’s just Rhodey. He’d seen me a lot worse, trust me.”

She rolled her eyes at him as if he was being particularly thick. “I was suggesting a shower. But if you don’t want to join me …”

_God_ , he loved this woman.

He scrambled up in record time, pressing a quick kiss to her neck as he murmured, “Excellent idea,” before leading the way down the hallway. Thankfully they didn’t have to pass the kitchen.

She tried to keep him on schedule, but it was still later than she intended when they finally made it to the kitchen, hand in hand.

Morgan looked up from her plate of chocolate chip pancake mash to declare, “Uncle Rhodey is here,” thankfully ignoring their delayed arrival.

Rhodey had no such delicacy. He turned the oven off, took out the stack of pancakes he’d been warming there, and then crossed his arms across his chest. “I really hope you weren’t doing anything gross. You have a young impressionable child in this house.”

“Is it gross for a man to physically express his love for his wife after they’ve been separated by death and time?”

“Eww, yes. You just made that so much grosser. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

The last time Tony had seen Rhodey he’d been three sheets to the wind. But Rhodey hadn’t judged him, even though he had every right to.  He hadn’t said anything at all. He’d just stayed for hours in that awful hotel, letting Tony sob into his shoulder.

He owed Rhodey more than he could possibly say, so he didn’t say anything, he just walked close enough that their arms brushed as he sidestepped his friend to grab a pancake from the tray. He rolled it up and tossed the whole thing in his mouth.  “Not bad,” he said through a mouthful of confection. “But I am ravenous.”

“Not as good as cheeseburgers!” Morgan interjected.

Rhodey frowned. “If Pepper wasn’t the one who’d have to clean it up I’d toss this whole tray at you. My best friend beats physics to come back from the dead and I have to hear it from Wilson.”

“Geez. I was gonna call. I’ve been busy sexing up my wife. Is that less gross?”

“No,” Pepper said from the table, where she was trying to wipe chocolate from Morgan’s face. “It’s not.”

Then the tension between them broke and they stumbled toward each other with a laugh. Rhodey clapped him on the back and Tony returned the gesture. “It’s good to see you, man. Things have been a bit somber without you.”

“Lame you mean,” Tony said as he pulled away. “I definitely think you mean lame.”

“I definitely mean something.”

They’d sat around the table for hours, gorging on cold pancakes long after the girls got bored and decided to leave them, though they never strayed farther than the living room, where their voices would still carry.

They’d swapped stories about what happened since 2012, and Tony was contemplating the differences they’d discovered when the door to the apartment burst open and all the nerves from the drive came flooding back.

Peter had earbuds in and was looking down at his phone as he tossed his backpack onto the couch.

“Oww,” Tony exclaimed as the backpack hit him square in the chest with super force, knocking some of the air from his lungs.

Peter snapped to attention, dropping his phone and then catching it in a single motion that managed to be both incredible clumsy and graceful. Their eyes met across the room, and Tony was glad that he could blame the errant projectile for the strange vacuum in his chest.

“Mister Stark,” he stammered.

He’d seen the kid twice since spending five years without him – once in the heat of battle and once after victory set in. Eventually he supposed the relief would fade, but it was still fierce. The urge to hug first and ask questions later was strong but Tony forced himself to stay put. He hadn’t earned that yet, not with this Peter. And not when he’d abandoned his counterpart without pause.

It was his only regret about getting out of that hellhole.

He found his voice faster than he had managed with Pepper, but he supposed a good night’s sleep and a couple rounds of endorphins had helped with that.

“Hey kid. What do you have in here, rocks?”

Peter tilted his head and squinted. “This is a dream, right?” He shook his head and took a few steps forward. “Gotta be. I should have known when we found out about the field trip. What kind of school sends a bunch of kids that just reappeared from an apocalyptic event to Europe? It doesn’t make any sense.” He ran a hand through his hair, frowning when it caught on whatever product he used to try to tame his curls. “So you came to visit huh? I know how this goes.”

“Pete.” Tony tried to interject, but the kid was on one of his infamous rambles, and it was nearly impossible to get his attention until he was through. Tony had failed more than once – and he didn’t like to fail.

“Just shut up a minute, okay? I know why you’re here. You’ve got some sage advice that I should hold on to for the rest of my life. Something you didn’t tell me when you were alive. Like, ‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ or something like that. I know how this goes. I’ve been through it before.”

That twisted inside Tony’s gut like a blade – because the kid was far too young for such loss – and he’d experienced it again and again. If there was anyone less deserving of a cycle of grief and abandonment it was Peter Parker, who was innocent as a lamb and too good for words.

It had taken just one sniff of loss to send Tony spiraling.

Peter had built himself up under it, somehow becoming stronger.

“Peter—”

Peter shook his head, though he crept even closer, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “Can we just not?” Tony could hear the desperation bleeding into the kid’s voice but he was powerless to stop it. “Can we do something else instead? I always wanted to try on the Iron Man suit. Or we could order pizza, watch a movie. Just hang out for a little while. Or maybe we could go back to that battlefield, and you could just not die, because I really miss you and it isn’t _fair_.”

Peter’s voice broke as his rambling finally stopped, and something snapped in Tony too. He scrambled up from the couch and crossed the few steps between then, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Peter’s head snapped up from where it had been bowed in shame, and Tony didn’t waste any more time. He threw his arms around the kid’s shoulders and pulled him into his chest just as Peter dissolved into sobs.

Tony bit back the instinct to tell him not to cry; he would not make the kid stifle his emotions just because they made Tony uncomfortable. Not when he worked so hard, every moment of Morgan’s life, not to be Howard. But Peter’s distress made him lightheaded with a desperate need to calm him down – because Peter could cry if we was upset, but he shouldn’t have to be upset at all. And Tony didn’t want to be the cause. He threaded one hand through Peter’s curls and rubbed circles into his back with the other, trying to be as grounding as possible. “Let it out, Pete. I gotcha. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Peter whimpered, which was followed by a wet sniffle into Tony’s shoulder. The fact he was getting snot on Tony’s t-shirt didn’t even bother him anymore – except that it was a byproduct of his misery. Maybe it was useful that kids were so _gross_. “It’s never going to be okay again. When I wake up you’ll be gone.”

Tony wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just led with, “I’m alive.” Now this was all getting a bit out of hand. It took great willpower to extract himself from his favorite spiderling, especially when the kid whimpered again, clearly mourning the loss of contact. Tony wanted to wipe the tears from his cheeks the way he would with Morgan – but Peter was so much older that it would probably be weird, especially because Tony was not his father. So Tony tugged him gently by the wrist and pushed him down on the sofa – the Peter sofa, where he had watched movies and done homework and now mourned a man who didn’t stay dead. There was a box of tissues on the coffee table – and Tony couldn’t help but relive Morgan’s words, _everyone’s sad now that you’re gone, but they’re trying to hide it_ as he handed them to Peter. Peter swiped at his eyes with the back of his hands and then blew his nose, letting the tissue fall to the ground.

_Gross. Kids were so gross._

Tony perched on the coffee table – an action Pepper would never allow, but Tony didn’t feel bad because he’d bought it. He leaned forward and rested a hand on Peter’s leg, but the kid’s gaze stayed resolutely on the carpet.

“Can you look at me, kid?”

Peter gnawed at his lip a few moments before shaking his head.

“Please?”

When that didn’t work either Tony reached out with his free hand to cup Peter’s jaw and gently tilt his chin upward. That did the trick, and Peter’s eyes finally met his, wide and wet. The shadows under them were far too deep for Tony’s liking.

He just wanted to hold onto this kid and never let go. For a moment he forgot why he’d come, forgot everything except that the kid was here, rematerialized after so long, restored in a way lost things never were, all his potential once more waiting to be unleashed on a brighter world.

Tony had no right to care so much about this kid who wasn’t his, but it was undeniable.

Peter blinked, another tear fell from his eye, and Tony pulled himself together.

“Okay, wish fulfillment. My latest suit’s trashed – apparently – but I’ve got a couple older models tucked away in the garage, so that’s easy enough. We should have time for a movie, although Little Miss has demanded cheeseburgers for dinner so you’re gonna have to finish most of that pizza on your own, which I know won’t be a problem. As for the third thing.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to go back to that battlefield.”

He never should have been there in the first place – sixteen years old and holding his own against aliens and superhumans, but he threw himself into danger because the world needed saving, because he couldn’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man without a neighborhood.

“We won’t,” Tony assured him, squeezing his leg. “Look, what happened there – I know that must have been hard for you to watch, especially after your Uncle.” They’d never talked about Ben, but Tony had researched the kid before Germany and he knew Peter had been there as his uncle bled out. “God I wish I could take that memory from you. I wish I could have made you stay on that bus, and maybe the both of us would have a few less nightmares. But I can’t change what happened, though I do have a pair of glasses that could help you work through it if you want to borrow them. But there is something I can say that I think will help. And it’s not some lame advice.” He waited, but Peter didn’t ask him, “What?” so after a few seconds he plowed on. “This isn’t a dream,” he said softly.

He waited for the kid to emit some sort of high pitched shriek or tackle him in a bone crushing super-hug, or at the very least start a barrage of questions. Instead he barely seemed to register Tony’s news. None of the misery faded, which simply wouldn’t do.

Tony dropped his hand from Peter’s face and pinched him on the arm.

“Ouch! What was that for?” Peter twisted out of his grasp, his other arm coming to rub at the spot in clear overreaction.

“I’m trying to get you up to speed here kid, and you didn’t seem to believe me. This is not a dream, though I will say the Europe thing is a little weird. Unless you’re going to Italy. I’ve always found Italy to be a great place to deal with past or anticipated trauma. Pep never lets me go, though. So annoying.”

Still there was no embrace. No relief. No joy. It was starting to get under Tony’s skin. Surely the kid couldn’t be broken. Not on his behalf.

“I don’t understand.” Peter sat up straighter, and Tony could trace the tension running through every line of his body. “If this isn’t a dream --  I heard you die. I heard your heart stop pumping, and the last breath that left your lungs.”

“Christ, kid.”

“No one was quite sure if you were really gone, but I knew the exact moment it was too late.”

“That’s—” Tony blew a loud breath out through his nose. No wonder the kid was wrecked. And it wasn’t even the first time. “Shit.”

Peter chuckled, but the sound was so cold and bitter it made Tony squirm. “Sometimes superpower suck.”

That was true, but he was too young to know that.

At least the Peter he’d left behind never had to witness his death. They’d hugged again after the battle was won, and then Tony had broken down in private and eventually run away, leaving Peter with that last memory of jubilated relief.

But this Peter … Tony had never wanted to apologize more for something he hadn’t even done.

Instead he pressed on, hoping that understanding would bring relief. “You can hear my heart now though, right?”

Peter nodded with squinted eyes and furrowed brows. “Is this a Tahiti situation?” he asked tentatively.

“No!” Tony answered, though truth be told he’d take alien-juice drugs and risk all the crazy-town side effects if that was what it took to bring him back to his family. “How do you know about Tahiti? _I’m_ not supposed to know about Tahiti.”

Peter shrugged like it was no big deal. “Ned hacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. files after they were released.”

Tony laughed, impressed, because that was moxie and smarts rolled into one. “Course he did. Wait a second, weren’t you guys like five when that happened?”

“We were thirteen,” Peter corrected.

“Same difference.”

Peter scowled again, and Tony smirked right back. “If it wasn’t Tahiti, then how are you alive?”

Tony leaned back a bit, rolling his shoulders. “How much do you know about how we got everyone back?”

“The time heist?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You’ve been talking to Scott.”

Peter nodded, slowly, and then hesitated only a moment. “You’re from another timeline.”

“Bingo,” Tony crowed, proud that he’d worked it out so quickly. Ned was clearly a computer genius, but Peter was no slouch.

Peter crossed his arms, looking almost affronted. But his thumbs rubbed up and down his skin, betraying his nerves. “But why would you leave your timeline for ours?”

It was a valid question, and the one he least wanted to answer. “The timelines were parallel, mostly, with a few major differences. I wasn’t the one to snap Thanos away, obviously. But there was no one left for me there when the battle was over.”

Peter’s eyes went wide. “No one?” he asked softly.

Tony could feel the tears swirling close to the surface, but what he’d gained balanced what he had lost and he managed to keep them at bay. “Well, there was someone. But I wasn’t strong enough to be the man he needed. Not in the face of all I’d lost.”

Peter’s arms came uncrossed and he ran his hands down his jeans. “Who was it? Did you have another kid there?”

Tony took a deep breath. “You could say that. I never said that. But maybe I should have.”

“Am I supposed to know who you’re talking about?”

Fondness and regret commingled, emotion hitting him so strongly all at once that he had to swallow down a lump in his throat. He’d played his cards too close to his belt for far too long and now this kid, who he’d risked the very fabric of time for, didn’t even know he was important. “You.”

Peter looked like he’d been caught in the middle of some indiscretion. “What?”

Tony handed him the photo he’d brought with him, the frame permanently smudged from all the times he’d picked it up and stared, remembering the bright-eyed kid he’d been unable to save, who was supposed to be the future. “I had this in my kitchen – in both timelines.”

Peter ran his finger across the cheap black and silver frame. “This was mine!”

It had been quite the shock, to find his own face staring back at him from the candid placed right next to the one of Peter’s aunt and uncle. He’d known immediately he was going to take it with him. “Yeah, I might have taken it from your room. I didn’t have a picture of us.”

“What were you doing in my room?”

Tony brushed off the question. “Your Aunt let me in. Not important. I’ll make you another copy, though you can’t have that back. The point is, after you died in my arms I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on.”

Peter’s grip tightened on the photo, and Tony was afraid it might shatter. His voice was weak when he muttered, “I’m sorry for making you feel guilty.”

Tony reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. It was still a miracle how he felt so solid in his grasp. “Don’t apologize. You were as brave and smart as any hero – probability just wasn’t on our side. That’s not why I brought this up. Thing is, I’d been all worked up for years trying to protect you, but I didn’t understand why I cared so much until you were gone. And I might have drowned in that failure, except when I got back to Earth Pepper told me she was pregnant, and I had to be there for her.” Tony shook his head, unable to stop the smile that crossed his face. “Oh yeah. I have a daughter. Her name’s Morgan. She’s great.”

“I know,” Peter said slowly, still looking adorably befuddled. “I met her at your funeral.”

“Oh.” Tony reached up to scratch at his hairline. “That’s not how I wanted you two to meet.”

“You thought about us meeting even though I was gone?”

“All the time.” He tried not to, because it hurt, but he didn’t just imagine it when he’d glance at the photo while he was doing the dishes. Sometimes he’d be enjoying a moment with Morgan and the searing truth would punch through his joy – it would be better if Peter was there.

“Wow. So that’s, um … why?” Peter’s eyes darted around the room, before focusing on Tony’s. They were red from crying, but there were bags underneath them that spoke of a more persistent grief.

Tony took a deep breath and stopped hiding. “So here’s the thing – and I know I should have told my Peter this but I was too wrecked – so I swore to myself that after I got my family back I’d man up and tell you. I did this all wrong the first time ‘round. Bringing you into the hero game and then keeping you at arm’s length. I was so worried that I’d be like my father if I let myself care that I treated you exactly like he treated me – cold, aloof, and demanding. I wasn’t fair to you, and I wasn’t fair to myself, and the damndest thing was that I did care. You impressed me, kid, and you got under my skin until I wanted to watch you become the great man you’re destined to be. It took years of therapy to admit that I should have just said that, but I thought I missed my chance forever. But now you’re back so I’m saying it now. I missed you kid. I missed you like crazy.”

The honesty was so overwhelming that Tony scrambled up to his feet and began to pace around the tiny apartment. They words flowed easier as soon as he was moving. “When Pep told me she was pregnant I was terrified. I was just coming off the most epic failure of the universe. That was no world to raise a child in. I didn’t know how I could possibly protect my family. But I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t love that baby, and when I was younger – well – that had always been one of my deepest and engrained fears. Because after spending time with you, I knew that the potential to become my father was there, but I didn’t have to give into it. I could be better. I could do better. Just cause I hadn’t always in the past, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t in the future. And I wanted to. I really, really wanted to be better. And when I set my mind to something – watch out world! But if I hadn’t had you, as a kind of practice kid, to show me-”

“Practice kid?” Peter croaked, and Tony wheeled toward him to shoot him an apologetic glance.

“Okay, that sounds weird. And kinda creepy. And condescending. Which I’m actually not trying to be for once in my life.”

“You thought of me … like a son?” There was something so heartbreakingly tentative in the question that a switch flipped in Tony. He knew immediately that he didn’t have to fear Peter’s rejection – he needed to convince him of his own sincerity.

It was one of the ways they were far too alike – shaped by loss, suspicious of affection. It hurt more to yearn for something you don’t have than to pretend you have everything you need.

Tony settled back on the coffee table, his knees brushing Peter’s, and reached out to grab one of Peter’s shaking hands. “Think,” he corrected gently. “Present tense.”

Peter’s hand twitched in his but Tony didn’t let go. “I know I’m not your father. Or your uncle. Or anyone who has any claim on you whatsoever. There’s no strings attached here. You can think of me however you want. I just need you to know that I’m here for you, whatever you need. As long as it’s within my power. And I am a genius billionaire that’s saved the world more than once, so there’s not a lot that I can’t do.”

“Anything?” Peter asked, raising his head to meet Tony’s eyes.

It was a dangerous promise to make, but Tony knew there were very few people in the world less likely to abuse it. There was nothing the kid could ask for that he wouldn’t willingly give. “Anything,” he echoed.

“A hug would be nice.”

Tony laughed as he surged forward, clapping the kid’s back as his arms came around him. This time instead of slumping bonelessly against him Peter hugged him back with barely contained super strength. “Yeah, we’re definitely here now,” Tony commented, which prompted a slightly hysterical giggle from the teenager in his arms.

“So did that happen in your timeline too? I can’t believe you’re actually here. This is crazy. Crazy-cool. The best. Miss Potts and Morgan must be so happy. When did the timelines split off? What changed them? Do you know what changed? You’re staying, right?”

“There you are,” Tony said as he reluctantly pulled back. “You were so quiet I was starting to get worried. Of course I’m staying. Now, are you okay?”

Peter tilted his head. “I think so.”

“Cause it’s okay if you not. Went to space, fought a genocidal grape, disappeared for five years. All that battlefield trauma. That’d be a lot for anyone. No shame in having trouble dealing with it. I’ve seen plenty of therapists. Probably should have started that sooner. If you want to talk to someone I can find you someone discrete. And I’ll pay for it, so don’t worry about that. Just say the word.”

There were so many mistakes Tony had made while he was destroying himself with unhealthy coping mechanisms. He’d do anything to stop the kid from going down that path.

“Thanks Mister Stark. I’ll remember that. But I think I’m okay.”

Tony rolled his eyes even as he lifted a hand to ruffle through the kid’s hair. “Wait a second, I take it all back. There’s a condition on everything I just said. If you insist on calling me Mister Stark then we can go back to being the mentor / mentee who awkwardly not-hug in limos.”

“But it’s your name,” Peter protested.

Tony heaved a long suffering sigh. “So’s Tony.”

“Technically your name is Anthony.”

“Smartass,” Tony countered with a bark of laughter. “Don’t call me that. Only Pepper calls me that, and only when she’d pissed. All we’ve been through, Underoos, I think we’re on a first name basis.”

“You see, now I want to call your Mister Stark even more.”

Tony scowled, secretly delighted. “Can it, kiddo.”

 

“Can it. What are you, fifty?”

That set off an odd twinge in his chest. “Fifty three, actually.”

“No way! You can’t – oh that’s right. The dusting time.”

It sounded so harmless when he said it that way. As if it wasn’t simultaneously the worst five years of human existence and also somehow the best five years of his. “Yeah, the dusting time.”

“I keep forgetting five years have passed, you know. It still feels like just last week that we were in space together. But I missed so much.”

“They were pretty rough years. Maybe you should be glad you missed them, or you would need that therapist I offered.”

Peter crossed his arms across his chest. “May needed me. You needed me.”

That was undoubtedly true, but the last thing Tony wanted was for him to feel guilty about that. “You’ll just have to make it up to us.” He caught a glimpse of the clock on the mantle, and did the math on the drive back. “Speaking of, can we take a rain check on that movie? I just got back last night and I hate leaving my family too long. I promised Little Miss I’d make cheeseburgers.”

Tony wasn’t expecting the way Peter’s face fell as he drew himself back. “Oh, of course. Another time. Or you don’t have to—”

Tony rose from the coffee table and settled next to Peter on the couch, checking him gently with his shoulder. “Were you not listening to my heartfelt confession? You’re an honorary Stark now. I just wanna move this party to my place. You like cheeseburgers, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter said tentatively. Tony had once seen him consume five of them in rapid succession while barely taking a breath.

“Great. Cause I make a mean one. Dinner at my place?”

Peter’s grin was radiant as he nodded. “Sure. Yeah. That would be—” His smile faded quickly, like clouds obscuring the sun. “I better not. I promised May I’d be home for dinner. I can’t worry her, after everything.”

That was a sweet sentiment, but Tony had his mind set on getting his kids together and he would not be deterred. With a fluid movement he fished the phone out of Peter’s pocked and opened a video call to a familiar number.

The link opened after the third ring. “Hey, May,” Tony crowed, enjoying the shock creeping over the woman’s face. It was a shame he hadn’t come back in time for his own funeral. “I’m taking Pete to my place for dinner.”

To her credit, May Parker acclimated to his presence a lot faster than anyone else he’d revealed himself to. “We went to your funeral last week,” she told him, but she didn’t accuse him of being a dream or a hologram.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a long story. I’ll tell you at dinner, if you can make it out. Otherwise I’ll have Happy take the kid home and I’m explain some other time.”

May’s gaze shifted, and Tony could guess that she was looking at Peter there beside him, bright eyed and giddy. She smiled softly, and Tony knew he’d been accepted even without an explanation. “I get off shift at five-thirty.”

“I’ll save you some burgers,” Tony promised.

“Thanks, May!” Peter exclaimed.

“You behave, young man,” she told him with a mock sternness that revealed how little she actually worried about that. Her gaze shifted, though her smile remained. “It’s good to see you, Tony.”

“Likewise,” Tony said, ending the call with a smile of his own. “There you go, kid,” he said, tossing Peter back his phone. “Dinner at the lake. No excuses.”

Tony was not expecting the stealth hug, but Peter turned on the couch and threw his arms around him, quick and tight. “Thanks for coming back, Tony,” he mumbled into his shoulder, and then he pulled away, scrambling off the sofa and depositing the phone in his pocket.

“Thanks for welcoming me back.”

Peter spun back to face him, even though he was halfway across the small room. “Did you tell him – the other Peter – where you were going?”

Tony nodded, thinking of the way he’d let a recording do all the talking. “Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the best truth.

“Then he isn’t upset. He’s glad you got to be with your family.”

Tony could find the right words to respond to that, so he slung his arm around the kid’s shoulders and thanked the universe that in this lifetime Peter was part of that family.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter if there’s interest, and then this is a wrap. I’d love to know what you think. I’m been itching to write this reunion since Endgame. If you’ve read my last two fics you know I love me some Iron Dad/Spider-Son.


	6. Chapter 6

Peter felt like he was dreaming.

Mister Stark – Tony – had assured him he wasn’t, and Peter wanted to believe him. The pinch had hurt, and his explanations made sense – in the same way anything made sense since that crazy day he went to Germany and met the Avengers. But as he sat shotgun in Tony’s fancy car heading upstate to his rustic lakehouse every aspect of the situation felt surreal.

When he’d tried to climb into the back Tony had flat out told him to sit in the passenger seat, without even making a joke out of the awkwardness.

Bizarre.

Peter hadn’t been able to handle the silence, too afraid that he would wake up and Tony would be gone, so he started a scientific discussion about time travel and parallel worlds that eventually devolved into a pop culture analysis. “I kinda feel like we should watch _Back to the Future_ ,” Peter suggested, emboldened by the way Tony kept watching him out of the corner of his eye and all the strange mushy stuff he’d said back in the apartment. “Just so we can point out all the ways it got it wrong.”

When he’d first met Mister Stark he’d never have dared to ask that. In the months before the Snap-ocalypse he might have tried, but it was unlikely the man would have had the time or interest.

Now Tony said “Sure” as casually as if Peter has asked him if he wanted a soda. “We should invite Lang. I think he’s still a little iffy on how this all works.”

“Okay!” Scott had introduced himself at the funeral, and Peter had felt a little better as they swapped stories about Germany, even as the dark haired woman by his side scowled in disapproval. It was a shame the man had gone back to California. “Scott’s cool.”

“I don’t know about cool,” Tony argued, but there was no bite behind his words. “But he was the one who got the Mötley Crüe back together and convinced them to get their asses in gear, so the whole world owes him one. Though his powers are mediocre at best.”

“Come on. He can get big _and_ small!”

“He has a giant pet ant. That’s weird.”

“There was a talking racoon at your funeral.”

“Rocket’s not my pet,” Tony fired back. Soon the both of them dissolved in snickers, which were just about under control until Tony added, “Pretty sure Thor still thinks he’s a rabbit.”

“We should watch all the _Back to the Future_ movies,” Peter pressed once they’d finally calmed down. “For research.”

“First one’s clearly the best. But I could be persuaded.”

“Maybe we should watch a few other time travel movies too. To compare.” It felt like whenever he shot out a web – there was always a moment of freefall before it caught hold.

But his aim was true. Tony shrugged, his mouth turning up in a strange, soft smile. “Make a list. Better yet, make two lists. Ones Morgan can join us for and ones she’d better not.”

“You’re baby monitoring your own kid!” Peter crowed, thinking of protocols he’d been anxious for Ned to disable.

“I’m supposed to do that. It’s in the parenting job description. The kid’s four. There’s a lot she doesn’t need to see.”

Peter conceded that point. He didn’t remember what his parents let him watch when he was four. He didn’t remember much about that time – or them – at all.

“So how’s the neighborhood?” Tony asked once the silence stretched too long. “Anyone buy you a churro lately?”

Peter still regretted sharing that particular anecdote. For a moment he scrambled for something equally as trivial to say. But his mind wouldn’t settle on a lie, and the truth spilled out of him, unbidden. “It’s good, I guess. I dunno. I haven’t been on patrol since I got back.”

“Why not?” There was something strained in Mister Stark’s voice. Something Peter knew he wouldn’t really like the reason for.

“It’s silly. It’s just, the last time I wore the suit – we were in space and then that battle.” He stared out the windshield, not wanting Tony to see the tears that had come to his eyes.

He could hear the way Tony’s heart sped up. “PTSD isn’t silly.”

“I don’t have PTSD. I didn’t have an attack or anything. I just thought that if I put on the suit – I might – and I don’t want to panic when I’m several hundred feet off the ground. I was trying to be responsible.”

Suddenly Tony’s hand was on his knee, exerting a grounding pressure. “Deep breaths, Pete. It’s okay. Do you need me to pull over?”

Peter dropped his head in his hands and breathed out hard through his nose. “I need you to drop this.”

Because Peter was okay. Most of the time that wasn’t even a lie. The past eight days had been some of the weirdest in his life – and he’d been to space and fought a battalion of rouge superheroes – but he was handling it. May was over the moon that he was back, and that was smothering but it was also reassuring, to know that he was so fiercely and unconditionally loved. Which he’d known for a long time, on some background level, but now it was in his face every time she looked at him and nearly broke down in tears. And most of the kids he’d been closest to had all gone dusty together – Ned and MJ and even Flash – so as weird as school was now at least they were facing it together.

But sometimes the wind blew and he remembered watching pieces of himself float away, and sometimes he heard raised voices in a crowd and Mister Stark was yelling at him because _This was a one way trip_ and he felt the weight of his mortality in a way he’d only done once before when he was underneath a parking garage, and sometimes for no reason at all he was back on that battlefield with ash in his throat and the smell of burnt flesh nearly bringing him to his knees as he listened to Tony Stark die, the greatest man of their age. If Tony Stark wasn’t untouchable then no one was. And Peter had had the Infinity Gauntlet in his grasp, but he hadn’t been able to do whatever it takes, and Mister Stark had paid the price for that.

Mister Stark, who had a wife and kid now and would never know what his attention had meant to Peter, as undeserved as it had been.

“Nope. Not happening.” Then Mister Stark was veering off the road and Peter wanted to disappear into the leather seat. This was the second time he’d broken down in front of Iron Man in a few hours. It was mortifying. But Peter couldn’t bring himself to wish that he was anywhere else, because somehow Tony was alive and that was reassuring even if Peter somehow still felt like he was falling apart.

Peter clenched his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see the pity in Mister Stark’s. “You should keep driving. Morgan’s waiting for her cheeseburgers.”

Suddenly there was a warm hand pressed against his cheek. Peter leaned into it instinctively. The touch was so much like something May would do. “She can wait another fifteen minutes,” Tony said, soft but sure. “There’s nothing more important to me right now than your wellbeing.”

Peter opened his eyes to find Tony only a few inches away. “Why?” he asked. “You barely even know me.”

Tony flinched, but he didn’t move either of his hands. “That stings. But maybe I deserve it.”

“Is this because of the timelines? Maybe you were super close with your Peter, and now you feel guilty about leaving him?” Peter was shocked by the wave of jealousy he felt at himself at the mention of that idea. Was there really a version of Peter Parker that had earned this sort of devotion from Tony Stark? What had he done that Peter hadn’t? How had he been better? “Because here I was just the annoying kid who let you down a bunch of times and sometimes came over to your lab so we could pretend I had an internship.”

“Sounds about right.” Tony let go of his knee so he could scrub a hand over his face. His right hand, which the last time Peter had seen had been blackened beyond all repair. “But you’re wrong, Pete. You’re so wrong. And it’s on me that you don’t know that.”

Tony was practically vibrating with energy, and Peter half expected him to get out of the car so he could pace. Peter recognized the feeling. If he was having a conversation like this with Ned he’d probably be swinging from the ceiling. “This isn’t a timeline thing. Least, I don’t think it is, but I can’t really be sure – haven’t quite figured out all the differences yet. But most of my emotional issues started way before 2012. Clearly I was a shitty mentor, and that was just as true in my spinoff version as it seemed to be in timeline prime. But that was my fault, not yours. Getting mad at you for being reckless – have I met myself? I think I just finally understood how Pepper must feel all the time and it freaked me out. Our whole acquaintance I was practically on the verge of a panic attack.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”

Tony scowled, and Peter couldn’t help his resulting smirk. “Here’s a few things I do know about you. You’re the smartest kid in your school full of braniacs but you’re angelically humble about it. Life’s thrown a lot of shit at you and somehow it’s made you a better person instead of a mess. And I recruited you because you didn’t seem like me at all, but the more time we spent together the more it was like looking in a mirror, and even though that terrifies me I couldn’t be more proud. Sound about right?”

Being around Mister Stark had always made him anxious, because every moment felt like a test, and more often than not he failed. But there was something about his soliloquy that reminded Peter of those precious afternoons in the lab when Tony would praise him for some discovery and Peter knew that he actually meant it, because Mister Stark didn’t do nice just for kicks. The thought of earning that pride on some permanent basis was like finding a brand new bike under the Christmas tree, far too expensive to be expected and precious beyond reckoning.

“I guess,” he mumbled. Though he wanted it to be true. Because Mister Stark was brilliant and heroic in all the ways Peter longed to be. And his absence had hurt in a familiar way that Peter had not expected to ever feel again.

“I know.” Tony’s  voice was steadfast as vibranium, impossible to be argued with, even if the words he said were stranger than a woman with antennae poking through her hair.

Tony patted him on the cheek before straightening in his seat and pulling them back on the road. “You don’t have to go back in the suit if you don’t want to. But don’t let fear stop you. Not when I can get you the good therapy.”

The man was being inexplicably kind, so Peter gave him what he wanted. “Thanks, Tony.” It wasn’t as difficult as he expected. There was something comforting in the informality.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it Underroos?” Tony laughed at the face he made at the awful nickname and then turned up the radio, until the bass and the tempo chased away all soft, sad feelings.

They pulled up to the lake house ten minutes later. It was the exact opposite of any place Peter would imagine Tony Stark living, though he’d noticed, even through the hazy numbness of the funeral, all the high-tech touches to the rustic décor.

It was the second time Peter had been this close to a lake. He hoped, with a vague certainty that took hold hard, that it would not be his last.

When he opened his door he was assaulted by a wave of fresh air, smelling of pine and pollen instead of sweat and smog, so clean it burned his lungs like disinfectant.

“Home sweet home,” Tony declared, removing the sunglasses he’d used to drive. “Oh, and a heads up. There’s a chance Morgan’s gonna call you her brother. Just run with it. We can correct her later if you want.”

Tony climbed out of the car, leaving Peter sputtering, “Huh?” and pondering over the loaded phrase, “if you want.”

Then a shriek pierced the air, and a dark haired bullet streaked towards Tony. He intercepted her with ease, swinging her around once before settling her on his hip. Her tiny arms wrapped around his neck as he pressed sloppy kisses to her face. Instead of squirming away she pressed herself further into his neck. “Missed you, Daddy.”

The scene did something funny to Peter’s stomach. It was private and mushy from a man who did neither, but there was something so pure and intense about the love these two clearly shared that it radiated. Peter couldn’t help but be a little jealous. If his own father had ever loved him that much he couldn’t remember it. That love had never had a chance to mature into something more distant but just as steadying. And Morgan had been so close to losing that opportunity as well – had lost it – but due to a trick of luck and physics _and a hearty dose of Captain America’s dang blasted stubbornness_ Tony was still here, alive.

Tony tugged on the end of one of Morgan’s pigtails and then bopped her on the nose. “I was only gone a few hours, pumpkin. I had a big important recovery op, remember?”

“Just because I remember doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Peter had never seen Tony smile so wide. “Well advised, Miss Sassypants. You’re feisty today.” He tickled his way up her side as she squirmed in his grip.

“I’m feisty every day,” she said in between giggles.

“Indeed.” In two large strides Tony carried her towards Peter who had stopped a few steps from the car, overwhelmed by the spectacle in front of him. He touched her face and tilted her towards the not-quite-strange teenager that was standing in her yard. “I have someone very important for you to meet. This is Peter.”

Part of him wanted to remind Tony that they’d already met, but the man seemed keen on this moment, so he kept his mouth shut. He was about to say something generically lame like, “How do you do?” when the girl shrieked, “Spider-Man!”

“What? No!” Peter sputtered, the denial automatic, because having his identity revealed to the entire world was in his top three fears, right behind watching someone he loved die and not being good enough to stop a tragedy. (More often than not those two were combined.) Now that he’d had to add disintegrating to the list he supposed being outed as a superhero has fallen to number four.

Tony was calm about it, though he had come out as Iron Man at a press conference, so clearly this was one of the many ways Peter could never live up. “That’s a trade secret, Little Miss.”

“Like extortion? And Mommy’s secret word shit?” the girl said with complete innocence – no trace of Tony’s trademark snark quite yet – and Peter couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from him. But instead of even pretending to be annoyed Tony smiled even wider. Peter was struck by how he’d never seen Tony look this genuinely happy. There had always been a glitch in the hologram, even in those times they were messing around in the lab, where the sarcastic veneer couldn’t quite render properly over all the dark things he’d been through. But Peter didn’t detect any of that now.

“Can you believe this kid? Four years old and already getting me in trouble. By the time she’s a teenager all my hair will be grey.”

Mister Stark used to make jokes about Peter turning his hair grey. But Peter found he didn’t mind much that he’d been replaced, not when it clearly made Tony so happy.

So he reached out a hand, immediately feeling dumb about the gesture but knowing it was too late to take it back. “Hi, Morgan. My friends call me Peter.”

Just as he feared, she looked at his hand but did not reach out her own. Peter didn’t need super-hearing to pick up Tony’s muffled snicker.

“Are we going to be friends?” She tilted her head, and Peter couldn’t help but think that she was cute as a puppy. He didn’t have much experience with kids, except when he rescued their cats or took selfies with them in the park. But the thought crossed his mind that he and Morgan would have fun together, especially when she was so clearly such a small, girly, innocent version of Tony.

He smiled at her, and she grinned back. “I hope so. If you want.”

“Of course I want to be friends with my favorite superhero!” She surged toward him and Tony had to readjust his grip.

“I’m your favorite superhero?” he repeated, dumbfounded for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which that he’d been dust on the wind for the entirety of her life up until a week ago. “Why?”

She answered without a second of hesitation. “Cause you’re Daddy’s favorite superhero.”

It was like the ground dropped out from under him. He’d always loved that feeling – the rush of freefall – but he wasn’t expecting it. His eyes found Mister Stark’s as he stammered, “What?”

The look the man was giving him was unfamiliar on his face, though he’d seen it on May’s – soft and fond – and he realized with another plunge that it was the same way he’d been looking at his daughter.

God, he was actually serious about this practice kid stuff.

“Who do you think was gonna beat you out, kid? Sir Ages a Lot? But don’t tell Rhodey. He’ll think he earned it, but War Machine is just a lame Iron Man knockoff, and everyone knows it. Solid dude. Sub-par superhero.” Tony’s voice was light and breezy, but his words were anything but. They lodged in Peter’s chest and spread like the warmth of the heaters in his suit, always there to thaw him out if he got in a tough spot.

“I figured you’d say the Hulk,” he rambled. He knew he had a habit of running his mouth before his brain caught up. “Because of the science. And the rage.”

Tony shook his head with a wicked smile. “Good guess. Brucie’s in the top three for sure. But I stand by my answer. Definitely you, kid.”

But Tony knew _all_ the superheroes, and Tony had been disappointed in him time and again. But Tony had no reason to lie, and had never bothered to spare his feelings before.

Suddenly Morgan grabbed his hand, snapping Peter out of the strange spiral of trying to figure out why and how Tony Stark had come to care for unlucky and awkward Peter Parker. “Wanna see my tent?”

There was something about the way the girl was batting her bright brown eyes that made Peter powerless to say anything but “Sure.” He needed the space to think anyway.

“Might as well give Pete the grand tour, Little Miss,” Tony said, setting his daughter down with one last kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll fire up the grill.”

“Cheeeeeseburgers,” Morgan shrieked as she grabbed Peter’s hand and pulled him towards the lake.

* * *

Pepper felt like she was still dreaming.

It had started so familiar. She’d dreamt about Tony coming back to her more often than she dared count, alternating with nightmares that reminded her all too vividly why he couldn’t. She wasn’t sure which was worse when she woke – brutal reality or the devastation of hope crushed anew. Neither released her from her promise that she’d be okay, or explained how she was supposed to be both mother and father to Morgan when really she just wanted to curl in a ball and rage against the unfairness of the universe.

She’d always known she was likely to lose him. Afghanistan had cemented that notion, though she’d fretted long before that that he’d drink himself to death or OD in some upscale hotel room. After his Iron Man reveal she’d known his loss would mean something. That was better than him throwing his life away in senseless debauchery, but it was also worse, said a brutally selfish yet practical voice that she couldn’t quite silence. It hadn’t taken long in his employ for some silly romantic bit of her heart to imagine that she could save him from the emptiness that led to his playboy ways. She’d cleaned up dozen of trashed parties and escorted out legions of nameless women without any hint she was right, until he had almost died from something far more serious, and the reveal of his feelings for her had come with the even bigger arrival of a hero complex far more dangerous than fast and careless living. The very first time Pepper had come across him in his suit she’d known that Iron Man would kill him – but how could she blame him for that? A switch had flipped in him in Afghanistan, giving the directionless man a clear outlet for his genius. He was determined to make the world a better place instead of not caring whether his company made it a worse one, and while that was sexy as all hell Pepper knew she couldn’t save him from that.

Most times she lived with that because she had to. Sometimes it became too much, and they took breaks that hurt them both more than healed. She’d never been able to stay away from him, even when she knew it would be for own good. He needed her. She knew how hard it was for him to admit that no matter how often the words fell from his lips – a plea or a bribe or a joke depending on the occasion. He made quite the effort not to need anyone else. She’d become his drug of choice.

The truth was she needed him too. Even though everything stormed around him he was her anchor, giving her purpose and resources and a steadfast encouragement that never waivered. Even when his conduct flirted dangerously close to sexual harassment he’d taken note of each one of her accomplishments, pointing out her achievements even when they revealed the lack of his own. He’d seen her, underneath the tight skirts and high heels, and unlike most men in power he hadn’t felt the need to push her down to raise himself up. _You’re the best person for the job, Potts,_ he’d say, as if that actually mattered in business.

He'd given her his damn company, and even if it had been on a whim while he was spiraling, he’d never doubted that decision.

It wasn’t until they were finally married, more than ten years later, holed up in their little hideaway from the fallen world, that she’d admitted how much his confidence had meant to her. How she’d become the woman she was in his eyes because he’d already seen it.

He’d kissed her forehead and rubbed his hand across her swollen belly, the promise of a future yet to come. “You’re the only thing holding me together,” he whispered. “And I’m so damn lucky you ever gave me the time of day.”

The problem was there was nothing holding her together now. As much as she’d tried to mentally prepare for his loss she wasn’t ready for the pain of it – how her head pounded and her stomach rolled as her mind screamed that it wasn’t fair – except for the times when the numbness took hold and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever feel another emotion again. Everything was always too much or too little now. She saw Tony everywhere and it hurt. But she feared the moment it stopped more than anything.

If it was just herself she would have buried herself in work, and maybe that would have distracted her enough to keep going. But Morgan needed her, not just to be present but to be strong, like she’d promised Tony. Morgan needed normalcy and routine and a mother who wouldn’t break down every time she saw Tony’s empty seat at the table.

Pepper tried to provide that, bearing herself up with the same strength and patience that had handled Tony all those years – but Morgan looked a bit like Tony and she acted even more like him, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the girl realized how it hurt Pepper just to be around her. It wasn’t her daughter’s fault. But she’d always been a Daddy’s girl, and she didn’t understand how her constant questions about why Tony had gone shredded Pepper up inside. Made her wonder with that same insidious voice whether Morgan wouldn’t have preferred if Tony had stayed, and Pepper had gone.

Morgan never said that. But Pepper feared it every moment they spent together.

Feared how she might actually consider making the trade, if it were possible.

She’d been an independent woman once.

Pepper hated those thoughts, but she hated everything nowadays, so that wasn’t new.

This morning she’d woken to the sound of Morgan and Tony conspiring, each muffled giggle healing a fissure in her bleeding heart. Somehow he’d been there even in the daylight, and that was new.

She worried it might be a dream within a dream, like that fool _Inception_ movie Tony had taken far too scientifically.

But he’d stayed, even as they bickered about inconsequential things and spent some sexy time in the shower. He’d stayed, as Rhodey made breakfast and innuendos which turned into a nostalgic recounting that perfectly aligned with what Pepper knew of Tony’s tawdry youth but included details she’d never heard and did not think herself creative enough to make up.

She had waited for the fantasy to fade, but eight hours later she was still awake and he was still here, returned from his sojourn to the city with Peter in tow. The boy was wide eyed and skittish, and Pepper understood how he felt. Joy left her off-kilter. If the other shoe fell, she was going to fall with it.

Once Morgan dragged the boy off Tony kissed her hello and then took up his station at the grill. He’d been a universal disaster at food prep when they started cohabitating, but something had changed when they’d moved to the lake and there’d been no suits to distract him. Tony needed projects to survive, and in between all the infrastructure remodeling he was contracted for he watched youtube videos on how to cook until he’d acquired several specialties. _He liked providing for his family_ , he’d say, and then he’d pretend to gag at how domestic he sounded. Grilling had become a particular favorite. _It’s rugged_ and _manly_ , he’d quipped.

Pepper didn’t suppose today would be his best work, because instead of watching the burgers Tony was watching Morgan and Peter play in the yard. Morgan was shrieking in delight as she threw rocks and sticks into the air, which would have been a bad idea except Peter snatched every one of them with his webs and dropped them in a neat circle like some kind of performance art.

It was good to see Morgan laugh. She’d been so solemn since Tony died that Pepper had feared that the bright and bubbly girl had lost her happiness along with her father.

Pepper came up behind Tony and ran her hands down his arms before snaking them around his waist. She rested her chin on his shoulder, turning towards his neck so she could smell his aftershave. “I hope that dissolves.”

Tony chuckled as he leaned back into her. Pepper noticed the way he’d trembled at her initial touch, and felt her heart flip in an equally unprompted gesture. “Give it a couple hours. If need be I’ll reseed the lawn myself.”

She snorted. “You will not.”

He rested the hand that was not holding a metal spatula over hers, his fingers moving just enough to make her skin tingle. She’s always appreciated his strong arms and clever hands, long before it was wise for her to act on that.

Acting on that had never been wise, exactly. But it had been well worth it.

“All right. I’ll pay someone to reseed the lawn.”

“That’s better,” she conceded, speaking the words into his neck before pressing a kiss there. He didn’t crumble into ash, or burn with radiation, or otherwise disappear.

“Look at them, Pep,” he said, his voice bleeding a reverence his younger self would have scoffed at. “The two of them, getting along. They’re both here. I thought about this moment hundreds of times but I barely dared to hope – and now. If I was a religious man I’d say this was a miracle. Life doesn’t give do-overs like this.”

She ran her hand up his arm and pulled him a bit tighter against her. He had mourned Peter for years, but her week of grief had felt just as final. “You’re here. That’s a second miracle.”

Just then Morgan let out a particularly shrill shriek. Pepper had assumed when she accepted that dating Tony Stark was a lifelong commitment that she’d never be a mother. Tony was surprisingly good with kids, but he feared fatherhood almost more than he feared wormholes. Even if he hadn’t made that clear during several alcohol fueled confessions through the years he had spelled it out a few weeks after they started sleeping together. “I’m just not father material,” he’d said. “You know I’m a mess. Alcoholism runs in the family,  and that much money’s not good for anyone. I’d be a terrible dad, and I can’t do that to a kid, you know? If that’s what you want you should tell me now, before I’m in so deep I can never let you go.”

Pepper had always been too focused on her career to think much about children. She was apathetic about motherhood, but far less so about Tony. She’d already realized the morning after they slept together when he hadn’t snuck out of bed that it was already too late for her to let him go. She didn’t need kids to be fulfilled. It’s not like they had to worry about who would take care of them when they were old.

 _Robots_ , Tony had said. _I’ll build us a house full of robots that can wait on us hand and foot._

Tony had said a lot of stupid things through the years, but he’d never been so spectacularly wrong. Despite his past and his flaws, he was an exceptional father.

“Three miracles,” they said simultaneously, and Tony turned his head to kiss her on the chin. Pepper thought she’d been happy before, with her career and her fiancée, but nothing had prepared her for what it was like to be Morgan’s mother. Chaotic and messy and so so worth it.

“You owe me a soda, Potts,” he said, nonsensically, and she elbowed him gently.

“I actually went to the store and bought us all sodas today.”

“So prepared,” he hummed, but his eyes never left the scene on the lawn. “They’re great kids, right?”

“The best,” she answered, not caring how sappy that sounded. Because the dream hadn’t faded, and  she’d never seen Tony this happy – not the first night they’d spent together or the day Morgan was born. There had always been something haunted about him. All that differed was how deep he hid it – how tinted his shades of the week were. Last night everything shattered had been close to the surface. But she could find no trace of it now. He radiated such pure unadulterated joy. She’d always found him distractingly attractive, but there is something about the look on his face that made her want to ravish him right there.

It was the first time she thought she might not lose him to Iron Man. That maybe he would actually retire and focus on civilian projects and be happy with that. They’d had peace after the Decimation, but Pepper had known that couldn’t last. Not with Peter gone and Strange’s strange behavior unexplained. They’d both known they were biding time until a reckoning was coming, and it was hard to argue that his life wasn’t fair payment for the restoration of half of everyone across the galaxy.

But the price had been paid. And he’d never been this happy with his suits, even if they made him the smartest and the strongest and the only one able to fly in the room.

 “Thanks for letting me pick up Peter. I just wanted him to be here, you know?”

“Of course. You’ve been dreaming about your kids meeting for so long.”

Tony stiffened in her arms and looked at her sideways with narrowed eyes. They’d never talked about this, because talking about Peter had been too painful after the Snap and before Tony hadn’t been ready to admit anything. But Pepper had watched how much Tony had grown to care for the boy, his sense of responsibility deepening into affection, pride, and love. And when he’d mentioned a baby in Central Park before everything went to hell she knew exactly who to thank for his lack of trepidation at the idea.

“I’m that transparent, huh?”

“Only to anyone with eyes.”

He scoffed, but she pressed her chin a little harder into his shoulder. Most of what she knew of Peter Parker was secondhand, but she looked forward to that changing. Tony and May both spoke of him as some paradigm of genius nerdy goodness. She knew it particularly threw Tony for a loop, all the ways they were similar and all the ways they were not.

“He’s welcome here at any time.”

Tony let out a breath Pepper hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Thanks, Pep. For being so good about this. I know it’s a little unorthodox.”

“I always knew there was a good chance you had a kid or two who would show up some day. The fact you’re not biologically related to this one is just bonus irony.” They’d established long ago that the best way to deal with his past was to face it head on. She didn’t have to pretend it never happened, and he didn’t get to make jokes about it.

He chuckled into her neck. “Love you, Potts.”

They’d been together for far too many years for her to still swoon, but still her heart flipped in her chest. “I know he’s the reason you were ready for Morgan. I owe him a lot more than some burgers. Which you’re burning, by the way.” The grill had started to smoke, and Pepper reluctantly stepped out of his grasp.

“Shit,” Tony swore, rushing to see if any of the meal could be salvaged.

“There’s an extra package of burgers in the fridge,” she advised. “I’ll go get everything else ready.”

“There’s an everything else to this meal?”

Pepper rolled her eyes. Of course she’d bought corn on the cob and potato salad, because she was the only one who thought of those things. And Cool Ranch Doritos, because she’d straightened up the rec room in the Avengers Compound often enough to know they were Peter’s favorite. “Yes. You’re not feeding your children just cheeseburgers. Or your wife.”

“You’re the best, honey,” he called as she retreated back to the house.

Tony had finished the second round of burgers and Pepper was bringing out her assortment of side dishes when Rhodey’s black government issue SUV pulled into the drive. _Boring_ , Tony had lamented more than once, but Rhodey had never been one for flashy sports cars. Today its size came in handy, as Bruce stepped out of the back in his hybrid form.

Pepper had seen him on the battlefield and at the funeral but there was still something shocking about his appearance.

It was not nearly as shocking as Steve’s appearance when he stepped out of the passenger seat. The man has aged at least fifty years in two days.

Tony had warned her, but it was still something to witness. But Pepper knew that Steve was the only reason her husband was back, so she marched right up to him and embraced him tightly.

He seemed more brittle than he was at the funeral, but she knew he wouldn’t break.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder. “There’s no way I could ever thank you enough.”

“Just take care of him, Ma’am.” They both laughed at his archaic phrasing, and when Pepper pulled away she swiped tears out of her eyes.

“Of course.” She glanced over to the grill, where Tony had convinced Peter and Morgan to help him bring everything to the picnic table. Morgan was carrying her platter with intense concentration, while Tony laughed about something Peter had said.

It was what she did best, after all.

It had never before seemed like it might be easy.

“I want to see pictures,” she said, dragging her eyes away from Tony because there would be plenty of time for that later, and it seemed like Steve might be running out of time in front of her very eyes.

Steve turned back to the car and returned with a frame. He handed it to Pepper with a strange little smile – bright yet melancholy. “Tony said not to, but this is much better than the one I showed him yesterday.”

She wasn’t expecting to see her own face staring back at her – more freckles, fewer wrinkles – leaning against a clearly less haunted Tony while a whole gaggle of strange children crowded around them. Not one of them was Morgan, but the setting was almost familiar; though it was not the same lake, it was close. And the happiness she saw reflected in both Tony’s eyes and her own seemed to mirror what she felt today. This other version of herself had just known it longer.

“That’s –” Pepper was not often speechless. She had spent decades witnessing Tony’s shenanigans, after all. But the photo left her at a loss for words.

Tony had explained last night. Steve had gone back to Peggy and created a new timeline. One where Howard was a good father and Tony was less of a mess – and he and Pepper had still found each other. Even when he hadn’t needed her quite the same way.

But there was no use dwelling on a life that would never be. Especially when she so loved the one she had.

“I meant a photo of you and Peggy,” she finally said. Steve laughed and took the frame back. She expected him show her his phone. Instead, in true form, he pulled a worn leather wallet from his pocket and showed her the photograph tucked inside.

The faded wedding picture was beginning to fray along the edges, but both bride and groom looked effortlessly happy. Pepper had never seen Steve smile like that.

“You’re beautiful. Both of you.” She couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes. They were so in love, and it was over, but the last time she’d seen Steve it had never been possible at all. He’d had a life without them, and it had been glorious, but soon enough they’d be the ones having to go on without him. After the week she had her emotions were a mess.

“It was more than I could ever dream.”

Pepper laid her hand across his forearm. “Tell me all about it.”

* * *

This was better than any dream Tony had ever had – his family and closest friends all sitting down to dinner without one whiff of imminent danger. He felt euphoric, like he was on the best trip ever. He’d never been this light without substances.

It was crazy to think that just three days ago he’d been lower than he’d ever been.

Tony couldn’t have been happier with one of his kids on each side, both returned to existence and filled with potential. Morgan was acting up a bit, being louder than usual, but Tony could hardly fault her enthusiasm. Not when she stuck so close to him, and called him Daddy on every other breath, and pushed every single button that turned him into a pile of paternal pushover mush.

But Peter was quieter than normal, and Tony suspected he was a bit shell-shocked by all of today’s developments. He’d looked lost when he returned from his tour, so Tony had saved him a seat right next to himself and across from Happy. Eventually he’d loosened up enough to ask Bruce how Professor Hulk came about, and that had spiraled into a very interesting -  _tedious,_ Rhodey had coughed – conversation, until May arrived halfway through dinner and walked right up to Pepper, crushing her in a hug.

Whatever she mumbled sounded a lot like, “I am so happy for you.”

“Hey now. I’m the one who traveled across timelines to be here,” Tony said with a smirk, swinging himself off the picnic bench. “Shouldn’t I be the one getting that hug?”

May rolled her eyes, but forwent a smart retort and wrapped him in a brief but firm embrace. “It’s good to see you, Tony.”

“What is going on here?” Peter asked. His voice was light with amused disbelief but there was something fragile beneath it.

“Auntie May!” Morgan shrieked, pulling on May’s leg until the woman swept her into her arms. “Daddy came home! Can we eat juice pops while you braid my hair?”

“Morgan Benjamina Stark, manners,” Tony scolded, trying to sound firm.

Morgan stuck her tongue out at him, but then turned to May with a smile and a considerably lower volume and added, “Please.”

“I need to have dinner first, Princess,” May countered, pushing the hair out of Morgan’s face and behind her ear. She tugged at the end of a few strands. “Then I’ll braid your hair.”

Morgan pondered that a few seconds and then relented. “Sounds fair.”

“Seriously, what is happening right now?” Peter asked, his arms crossed at his chest. “Did you all _hang out_ while I was gone?”

Those last four words put a damper on Tony’s mood, for all the memories that prompted were tinged with sadness. Peter’s loss was an ache that had never gone away – not until the moment he swung up to Tony on a battlefield and launched into a rambling explanation. But he and May had both learned to cope, and they’d done that together. She’d become an honorary Stark, and there were plenty of times where joy outweighed pain.

But to Peter just last week May had been mildly disapproving of Tony and almost entirely removed from his life, not a part of his close knit inner circle.

Had to be weird.

“Oh honey,” May said, setting down Morgan so she could scoop her nephew in a hug.

“Sometimes,” Tony cracked, a joke but the truth. He was already imagining all the ways their worlds could mesh now that they had him back as the nexus point.

It only lasted a second, but Tony saw the way Peter grimaced.

By the time everyone had gathered around the fire pit to make s’mores Tony was pretty sure he knew what was wrong.

Peter had said it himself, just a few hours ago. _You don’t even know me._

Rewind five years and Tony had been just as awkward around Peter as he was being around him now. Then Morgan had been born. The first time he held his little girl in his arms he was bowled over by a wave of pride and love and terror, and the strangest part was how that particular emotional cocktail had been _familiar._ “Shit,” he’d whispered, running his finger across his daughter’s tiny wisps of hair. “I’m gonna be better, baby, I promise.” Suddenly there was more than one reason for the tears in his eyes and he tried to blink them away. “For you. For Peter’s memory.” Morgan blinked up at him sleepily. “For me.”

And he had been. It hadn’t been easy, facing all his oldest demons in the sad emptiness of the post snapocalyptic world. But he’d been the father Morgan deserved – the kind he’d wished he’d had, growing up. And every time he looked at Peter’s picture by the sink he felt regret, not just that Peter had died, but that Tony hadn’t been the man he needed while he’d lived.

He’d determined that first day in the hospital with Morgan that if they ever got Peter back that would change. Yet he’d still failed the Peter of his timeline, abandoning him to chase after ghosts. But this time he wasn’t running. Never again.

But Peter hadn’t been privy to all these years of soul searching, so how was he supposed to know how much Tony had changed?

Tony recognized the signs of a lonely kid who’d come to believe they weren’t worthy of someone’s attention. He and Peter really were alike in too many ways. It almost killed Tony in this timeline to think that he’d ever torn the kid down that way – but he was done playing Howard Stark in this reboot. As his little adventures in time travel had taught him, the past couldn’t be changed, but the future could be rewritten.

He would make Peter see how much he loved him. It might not be easy, but the kid had a solid support system and a good head on his shoulders. Besides, now that Tony had retired from the superhero life he needed a new side project. He was already imaging several stages of a plan. He was really excited about the Extravagant Gifts phase, already thinking about the best car to buy and some badass suit upgrades.

But first up, a Grand Gesture.

He waited until Morgan was tucked into bed – and even though she demanded three stories she was asleep halfway through the sanitized version of Spider-Man’s origin story which he’d mostly made up. When he went back outside he found Peter sitting besides Captain America, laughing softly while they burned marshmellows together and Peter ate them with too much chocolate. Tony’s heart swelled inside him, because the kid was alive and he was here.

“I’m gonna steal my kid away, Cap,” Tony said, coming up behind the teen and resting his hands on his shoulders.

Anyone else might have jumped, but with his enhanced senses Peter probably knew he was there. But there was something tentative in his eyes when he turned his head to look up at him.

Right. He’d called him, “My kid.” Tony knew that maybe he should tamp things down a bit, but he really didn’t want to.

“I’ve got something to show you in the garage, Underroos. That okay?”

“Sure, Mister—” He stopped at Tony’s glare, ending his sentence with “Tony.”

For the first time Tony realized just why it bothered him so much when Peter called him Mr. Stark.  Pepper had done it for years. Everyone did besides Rhodey, and the formality provided a layer of protection just like his sunglasses. But he didn’t want to keep Peter at that distance.

Tony wasn’t really what he wanted the kid to call him either.

But that was getting ahead of himself. Grand Gesture. Extravagant Gifts. They’d get there eventually.

He kept his hands on Peter as he guided him to the garage, and unlike most surly teenagers he didn’t shrug him off. It was a tangible reminder that the nightmare was over. The last time he and Pete had had so much physical contact Pete had disintegrated in his arms.

The garage opened at his command. Peter didn’t even blink at the magnificence of his workshop – all the never before seen tech right next to his familiar bots. “Morgan showed me all this already.”

Tony finally let go of Peter to rustle through some old protypes piled in a corner. It was nice that this version of himself was still a mess. It would have sucked to come here and learn that chasing after Loki had turned him into a neat freak or something.

“I didn’t come to show you my workshop,” Tony countered without turning around.

“Then why are we here?” Peter asked.

Tony opened a drawer and found what he was looking for. “Ah ha!” he exclaimed, spinning back to face Peter. “Catch!”

It was astounding that a boy who was such a klutz with a bowl of cereal could snatch the reactor from the air with such effortless grace. He turned it over, his eyes widening when he realized what he was holding. “What are you doing?”

“I believe you said something about wanting to try on the suit.”

Peter stared down at the arc reactor in his hand as if Tony had thrown him a fistful of diamonds. “I couldn’t.”

“Why is that? Because you thought you were asking your dream subconscious so you didn’t have to be embarrassed?”

“Well, yeah.” Peter’s eyes were still fixed on the tech in his hand, and Tony hated that he knew how he was feeling. Tony contemplated the best way to get the kid to look at him – a soft command or a hand on his shoulder. He’d tip up Morgan’s chin, but he and Peter weren’t quite there yet.

But Peter wasn’t Tony. And Tony wasn’t Howard. After a loaded few seconds Peter lifted his gaze himself, finding Tony’s eyes with a look so tentative it broke his heart and knit it back together again all at once.

This was the time when his old self would have gone for a joke, needing to diffuse the emotional rawness in the air, but Tony knew in this moment that could be just as damaging as channeling Howard. So Tony offered him a genuine smile, holding it for a few seconds before he answered.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, Pete. The Iron Man suit is wicked cool. Of course you want to try it on. Everyone wants to try it on.”

Peter’s gaze didn’t waiver now, and Tony considered that a win. “You really don’t mind?”

He’d always been territorial about his suits. Had begrudged Rhodey the one he’d taken, even though on some level Tony had given that to him intentionally. But there was nothing in Tony that protested now.

“I really don’t, young padawan. Just press it on your shirt and the nanites will attach.”

Peter’s head tilted. “Like Velcro?”

Tony hoped enough time had passed that he could make jokes again. “Yeah, like Velcro,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “The world’s most expensive Velcro.”

Peter smirked and did as he was told. The burst of light on his chest was strange and unfamiliar, but Tony reminded himself that it was okay, that Peter didn’t _need_ it. “Now double tap twice.”

Tony had watched his armor form hundreds of times, in so many iterations. It was always thrilling, but it was never like this. He wasn’t ready for the swell of paternal pride that consumed him, making it hard to think clearly. Surprisingly, it was his old man’s voice ringing in his head. One word in particular.

 _Legacy_.

“Whoa! This is _insane_.” Peter’s voice sounded strange filtered through the mask, deeper and mechanized, and Peter must have thought so too, because the faceplate retracted, revealing bright eyes and flyaway curls. He looked so joyous that Tony wanted to cherish the moment forever.

Luckily he was prepared. “Fri, enact the Pictures Last Forever protocol.” His faithful girl snapped away from various angles, the shots projecting in the air for a few seconds before being whisked away to her data banks for his future perusal.

“All good, Boss?”

Not quite yet. He stepped next to Pete, threw an arm around his shoulder and placed the other behind his head in a two finger salute. “One more, dear.”

The picture was perfect, Pete’s expression an amusing mix of  befuddled joy while Tony beamed, a far cry from his usual look of detached disinterest that he’d perfected for the paparazzi.

“Now that’s a keeper,” Tony crowed, already thinking of how it was going to go not just in his kitchen but also on the mantle and the background of his workshop computer. “You can have that internship photo back.”

Peter’s eyes widened as if he’d just faced a cosmic slight. “No fair. Can I have a copy?”

“You can have as many copies as you want, Pete.” Tony squeezed his shoulder, but he didn’t think the kid noticed because he couldn’t feel it through the suit. That was the danger of encasing yourself in iron.

“You should keep the suit too.” The words slipped out without any forethought, but as soon as they were voiced Tony realized how right they sounded. “I mean, this is an outdated version, so I’ll have to remake you the latest model, and we should make a few adjustments to incorporate your measurements, but symbolically you know what I’m getting at.”

Peter shifted toward him, his stance closing down. “You sound serious, but you have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding.” Tony could see it all so clearly now, and the future was far brighter than a suit of armor around the world. It was an optimist in a suit full of guns he wouldn’t use, looking out for the little guy in every neighborhood. Turning a history of violence into a future of peace. “I’m retired now. I finally mean that. I used to need the suits but now all I need is you and Morgan and Pepper. It’s time to pass the torch. It’s time for a new Iron Man.”

“I’ll never be Iron Man,” Peter protested, but he was wrong.

“You’ll never be me. But that’s okay. I’ve told you before, that’s good. But Iron Man was never supposed to be about me, although I’ll admit I forgot that sometimes. Iron Man is a symbol, and a protector. And it’s time for someone else to wear that mantle for a while. Cap gave his shield to Wilson. So I’m giving the suit to you. I can’t think of anyone better.”

“What about Morgan?”

“Pepper would skin me alive. She’s far too young for that. Plus that would open up a whole Iron Man / Iron Woman can of worms which, though valid, might really just muddy the waters. She’ll find her own way when she’s ready.”

“You think I’m ready?”

There would always be a part of him that wanted to say no. To wrap Peter in bubble wrap and protect him from every dark part of the world, not push him towards it. But he’d been choosing this life for years, and Tony had no right to take away something that was a part of him.

“Can’t put that genie back in the lamp now.”

“I don’t think that made any sense.”

“I take it back,” he said, deadpan and altogether not serious. “You are too young for this.”

“I don’t know.” Peter took a step and seemed surprised by the weight of it. “You’ve done all these amazing things and I want to be like you but I don’t feel worthy yet, you know?”

“Trust me kid, you are.”

“But that’s it. I am still a kid. Just because I want to be Iron Man doesn’t mean I should be Iron Man, right? It doesn’t mean that I actually could.”

He really should have stopped being surprised about the kid making smart choices. “Ok, valid point.”

“Also, as ridiculously cool as this suit is, it’s impossible to make use of my spider powers. I can’t swing. I can’t stick to stuff. And it would look pretty silly if I shot webs out of these arms.” He lifted a gauntlet to proof his point, and Tony chucked at the image it prompted.

Maybe he had gotten a bit ahead of himself.

“I’m sorry for letting you down.”

“Hey.” This time Tony did put his hand on Peter’s chin without thinking, needing to stop that particular train of thought before it left the station. “You making a rational, mature decision will never let me down. You don’t think you’re ready to be Iron Man? You don’t want to be Iron Man? That’s okay. I’ll never love you any less for wanting to make your own path. I promise you that, okay. I didn’t mean to push.” His hand drifted upwards and ruffled through Peter’s curls. “But I want you to know that I believe you can do it, whether that’s today or in ten years. If you ever change your mind I’ll make you a suit in a heartbeat. Cause I’m proud of you kid. Whatever you decide.”

Peter’s smile started slow, but in a few seconds it had consumed him, making him seem both younger and lighter. “Maybe one day. When I’m older. Or if the world really needs it.”

He hoped the world never would. “Agreement to table this discussion until an undisclosed future date. Though you’re keeping that suit. Just in case. Or for Halloween. Whatever.”

“Thanks, Tony.” There was no hesitation this time, and Tony suspected they’d be moving on to what he really wanted to be called soon enough.  He wasn’t expecting the kid to tackle him in an iron hug, but he returned the embrace willingly, finally understanding what Pepper meant about the suit getting in the way.

“In the meanwhile, Iron Spider sounds pretty badass, doesn’t it?” Peter said into his shoulder.

Tony blinked sudden tears out of his eyes, because Spider-Man was Peter’s, and the fact the kid wanted him to be part of it meant more than him being willing to take up something Tony had created. “It sure does.”

He pulled away once he had himself under control. “All right. Now it’s time to test out what this puppy can do. After you go flying you might reconsider waiting on the upgrade.”

“Flying?” Peter squeaked.

“Yeah. What’s the point of Iron Man if you don’t fly? But we have to go outside for that. I learned that the hard way. Went right through the ceiling of my workshop.  Pepper was not amused – and it wasn’t even her house then.”

“This is the best day ever,” Peter said as the mask reformed around him and he followed Tony out into the night bright with stars.

For Tony, the best part was that it was only the first of many.               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap, my friends. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little Iron Family wish fulfillment. I’d love a final comment if you did. And if you need more Iron Dad/Spider Son, please check out my post Infinity War fix-it stories, Phoenix Rising and After the Smoke Clears, which you can find on my profile.

**Author's Note:**

> I’d really love to know what you think! I have so many thoughts about this movie, and while I very much enjoyed it for the most part I was one of those desperately wishing for a happy ending, and this is my denial.
> 
> Steve’s journey was supposed to be a lead in to some much needed Iron family fluff, but then it took on a life of it’s own and suddenly I was writing the Ancient One and all this happened. There’s at least one more Steve part, and then two Tony parts … but I tend to underestimate these things. Especially when I have reviews cheering me on.
> 
> Also, if you’re in desperate need for some IronDad/Spider-son fluff, feel free to check my profile for After the Smoke Clears and Phoenix Rising – my post Infinity War coping mechanisms.
> 
> Stay strong, my friends. Tony and Nat both live on in out hearts and our fanfiction!


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